Lost and Found
by scripting life
Summary: A four-year-old, a mall, and finding something you didn't even know you'd lost. Sometimes all it takes is a chance encounter for everything to fall into place. AU with echoes of canon.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: What the freak is wrong with me? Why am I starting another multi-chapter fic when I'm not even close to done with** RELAPSE**?_

_I just couldn't help it. I was rewatching old Castle episodes to bide my time until Monday, and when I was watching 3.08 "Murder Most Fowl," I remembered that there was an AU storyline based on the story that Castle tells about Alexis getting lost in a mall that I'd been wanting to write. So here it is._

_This is AU. Massively so. I've had to alter ages and dates to fit the timeline correctly, but I think you can figure out what I've changed based on what I reveal in the story. If you're curious, I have a list of things changes at the end of this chapter. I still recommend that you read the chapter itself first, though, if only to get the context._

_Also, I'm experimenting with shorter chapters to see if that'll help me update more quickly. Starting this fic does not mean that I'm not working on **Relapse**. I think the change of pace might actually help me write both better, but we'll see._

_**EDIT 6.19.12: ****You know how I said this is massively AU? Turns out it's more like a different time-line AU with echoes of canon thrown in. Funny how that works.**_

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Disclaimer: _Castle_ and all affiliated people, places, things, and events are property of Andrew Marlowe (and company) and ABC Studios. I simply borrow the fruits of their genius from time to time to indulge my whimsy. I make no monetary profit from these brief excursions into the land of "what if."

I'm also not affiliated with The Westchester, Starbuck's Coffee, or Nathan's Famous in any way. I'm just borrowing the the names and places for the sake of adding authenticity to this story.

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_**Lost and Found**_

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Chapter One

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For the life of her, Kate Beckett couldn't figure out why she'd agreed to spend her rare day off at a mall of all places. And not just any mall. She was at The Westchester in downtown White Plains.

As if she could afford to splurge on buying Christmas gifts from The Westchester with her lowly cop salary.

In general, Kate didn't like malls.

That wasn't to say that she didn't like shopping (which, incidentally, she loved), nor was she all that aversive to the large crowds that always seemed to think that the best days to flock to the malls were the days Kate happened to be there. One didn't live in New York without developing a tolerance to thick, milling crowds.

It was simply that Kate hated the commercialized feel of malls—the impersonality of it all, if you will. If she was going to go shopping, she'd rather be doing it at specialty shops in SoHo or Little Italy or something like that.

And now, instead of being home relaxing her fatigued mind and exhausted body with a nice, long bath and a good book, her best friend Lanie Parish had roped her into spending the day with her at the mall.

She really hated Lanie sometimes.

Especially since said "best friend" had ditched her to flirt with that hot piece of hunk sitting two tables away.

She couldn't find it in herself to be too upset with the overworked medical examiner for taking the rare opportunity to flirt it up, though. If Kate thought she had it bad as a detective for Vice, Lanie had it three times worse. At least with Vice, Kate had a relatively regular and predictable schedule. Lanie, though, was always on call. People just didn't have any sense of timing when it came to dying or killing someone off.

Oh jeez, Lanie and her morbid sense of humor were really rubbing off on her. Kate imagined it would only get worse once her request for transfer to Homicide went through.

Kate shook her head and busied herself with finishing off her grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla and the bear claw that she'd ordered when Lanie had _finally_ decided to take a break from their (window) shopping spree. She eyed the Nathan's Famous sitting across from the Starbuck's she was currently situated at and debated the merits of hot dogs versus coffee pastries.

She was just about to text Lanie to tell her that if the ME was going to ditch her for Mr. Pretty-boy, then Kate was going to get that hot dog and then go home for the bath she'd been drooling after for the last month when a gaggle of mall security personnel led by a clearly distraught man suddenly stampeded past her table.

Her cop instincts blaring, she stopped one of the security guys to ask what was going on.

"Dad lost his kid shopping. We've been looking all over for the girl for an hour at least, but no luck so far."

Kate braced herself against the back of her chair the moment she heard the words _lost_ and _kid_.

Images of a pale, doll-like face framed with dark locks flooded her memory until all she could see was the vacant stare of beautiful blue eyes dulled by death.

It'd been more than a year since that case, but even now, the failure weighed a heavy pit in her stomach and stabbed a stake in her heart.

She forced herself to breathe, to tuck away the memory of that poor, beautiful boy into a treasured box to be opened when she could finally face it without breaking down. By the time she came back to herself, the security guards were gone and so was the commotion wreaked by the irresponsible dad.

Kate jumped a little when Lanie came up beside her to put a hand on her shoulder. Kate glanced over and smiled at the sight of the short but filled with sass black woman who more often than not kept her grounded to the here and now.

"You okay, girl?" asked Lanie in that soft, touched with just a bit of Southern comfort voice that could go from soothing to downright frightening in a blink of the eye. Kate had been at the receiving end of Lanie's lectures (usually they were some variation on the theme that Kate needed to go out and live a little) often enough, but right now, Lanie's chocolate brown eyes were filled with compassion.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Kate said after taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry for cutting this short, Lanie, but I think I'm gonna go home now."

The shorter woman cocked her head at her. Kate always felt like the ME was seeing straight through her soul whenever she got that look on her face. It had been unsettling at first, but now Kate understood that it came with the territory of having an all-too-insightful and intelligent woman as her best friend.

"Alright," Lanie eventually capitulated. "You owe me later though."

With that Kate rolled her eyes and scoffed. "_Please_. You're the one who was ditching me for hunky-hunk over there."

She gestured over at tall, dark and cut like a male model, and Lanie smirked. "He is all kinds of delicious, isn't he?"

"You can tell me all about it tomorrow. Actually, don't. You give me way too many details about your sex life as it is."

"That's because I'm being a good friend by making sure you live vicariously through my misadventures since you won't have your own. Not since Mr. Feebs, anyway," Lanie pointedly added.

"Let's not make this another talk about Will, please."

"I'm not. I'm just saying that it's been over six months since he left, so you should get your skinny behind out to the clubs with me again."

Kate shook her head. "I told you, I'm over Will. I've just been busy."

"Oh honey, how much b.s. do you think you can feed me?"

"Apparently, never enough." Kate cut Lanie off before she could go on another tirade. "I'm going home now. Call me later, and we'll see about the clubbing thing."

Kate didn't bother looking back when Lanie called after her. "We both know that means you're not going!"

Kate ignored her. What could she say when it was true?

It wasn't that Kate didn't like going out for a drink and dancing her heart out every now and then. It's just that she really was busy with Vice and working on passing the necessary written exams to get into Homicide. And ever since she'd applied for the Academy, she'd known that she simply _had_ to be Homicide.

They were all pieces of her endgame.

Get into the Academy.

Make detective.

Transfer to homicide.

Solve her mother's murder and put the bastard who did it behind bars for good.

…

This game wasn't turning out to be as fun as she thought it would be. In fact, this game was getting kind of scary.

Alexis Castle looked around at all the big people, but not one set of those tall people legs belonged to her daddy.

She just wanted her daddy.

At first, she was bored because Daddy was trying on all these hats when they were supposed to be Christmas shopping. So she thought it'd be fun if they played hide-and-seek. They played hide-and-seek when they were at home all the time, so it shouldn't be too different here.

She waited until her daddy looked away, and then she snuck off with a suppressed giggle. Daddy wasn't going to find her so easily this time. She was going to find a really, really good hiding spot.

After ambling around the store for a while, she finally found a rack of winter coats that would be perfect to hide in. So she climbed onto the rack and sat still as she waited for her daddy to find her.

But she waited and she waited, and Daddy still didn't come for her. Daddy _always_ found her.

She waited so long that she fell asleep. But by the time she woke up, Daddy still hadn't found her yet.

Frowning now, Alexis scrambled out of the rack and looked around. There were so many people, but none of them were her daddy.

Alexis didn't like to cry. But she couldn't help it when tears started to fill her eyes.

She wanted to go home. She wanted Daddy.

"Hey, sweetheart. What's wrong?"

Oh wow, that was a pretty voice. Alexis stopped crying just long enough to peek up her head to look at who was talking to her.

Her little mouth dropped open and her watery eyes blinked wide in awe. Alexis had never seen such a pretty lady before. Sure, Mommy was beautiful and Daddy's pub-publi-publi-something was really pretty too, but neither of them were pretty like this lady. She had the kind of long wavy brown hair that people on TV have, and her eyes were this really cool brownish green that kept on changing colors.

The lady crouched down so that they were about eye-level, and she looked at her like her daddy did, not like other big people. Other big people always looked at her like she was too little to know what they were talking about, but Daddy always said that she was pre-ko-shiss and that meant Alexis was really grown up for her age.

The lady looked at her like she also thought that Alexis was pre-ko-shiss.

"Where are your parents, sweetie?" asked the lady.

Alexis wanted to answer her, but she didn't want to get in trouble.

"Daddy said I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers," Alexis whispered and hoped that Daddy wouldn't be mad at her.

The lady nodded. "That's very good of you to listen to your daddy. But you know what?" The lady reached to get something at her hip. She pulled it out and handed it to Alexis. "That's called a police badge. That means that I'm a police officer. Do you think you can trust me just a little?"

Alexis took her time examining the shiny metal set in leather. She'd never seen a real police badge before. Daddy will be so jealous that she got to see it, and he didn't.

Alexis smiled shyly at the pretty lady and handed her the badge back. "I think it's okay to talk to you if you're police."

The lady smiled really big, and Alexis couldn't help saying, "You're so pretty, lady."

The lady laughed, and her brown-green eyes twinkled. "Thank you. You're very pretty yourself, sweetheart. My name is Kate. Can you tell me your name?"

"Alexis."

"That's a beautiful name, Alexis. Now, do you know where your mommy and daddy are?"

Alexis wrinkled her nose. "Mommy lives in Caluhfornah. And I can't find Daddy."

"I see." She paused like she just thought of something. "Does your daddy have brown hair and blue eyes that are just a little darker than yours?"

Alexis nodded eagerly. "Yes."

"I think I've seen him. Let's go talk to the nice security guards and see if we can find your dad, okay?"

"Okay." Alexis hesitated, then bravely asked, "Can you…can you carry me?"

The lady—Kate—smiled again, and Alexis thought that Kate looked even prettier when she smiled. "Of course."

Alexis held out her arms to wrap around her neck, and Kate lofted her up to sit at her hip.

"Alright, let's go find your dad."

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_A/N: List of changes:_

_1. Alexis is four, as per Castle's story in 3.08._

_2. Kate is 25-26 and is a detective in Vice. (I'm following the logic given in the Castle Dustjacket that Kate started out in Vice [based on things she'd said in Season 2] and transferred to Homicide.)_

_3. Castle is in his early thirties and the divorce with Meredith was finalized two years ago. He never married Gina._

_4. I guess we could say that this starts out in December 2011, just because I'm too lazy to figure out how the timeline would work if I tried to set it earlier. Honestly though, I don't think the year will make a big difference other than as a frame of reference._

_Those are the big things for now. If I think of anything else, I'll add it then. Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it!_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Wow, thanks so much for the reception so far! I'm so glad that people are liking this fic (as evidenced by the ridiculously awesome amount of people that have added this story to their favorites/story alerts). That being said, I'd really appreciate it if you could drop even just a line to tell me what's working for you (or not) as well. Thanks to everyone who has already reviewed, favorited, and/or story-alerted!_

_Random fun fact: I actually looked up the layout of The Westchester for this fic. And then I went on to basically ignore the floor plan because it didn't fit into what I was writing. :D Oh the things I do for fanfiction._

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Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Neiman Marcus, and make no profit from using their brand name in this fic. Again, it's just borrowed for the sake of authenticity.

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Chapter Two

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This was quite possibly one of the most surreal experiences of Kate Beckett's life.

She liked kids well enough and always thought that she would want some of her own someday, but she had very limited experience with them. Neither of her parents had siblings and while they both had a plethora of cousins to play with growing up, that closeness hadn't passed down to Kate's generation. She's pretty certain a good number of her second cousins had kids by now, but aside from the occasional Christmas postcard, Kate had little interaction with them.

But now, for probably what was the first time in her life, she was carrying around a little girl who had her small arms wrapped tightly around her neck.

Surreal.

It was a complete accident that Kate ran into Alexis at all. The only reason Kate had walked through Neiman Marcus was because her motorcycle was parked near that exit. As she made her way past the women's coats, she'd seen the most adorable little girl, maybe three or four years old, sitting on the floor and looking extremely lost. It didn't look like there was anyone around to claim guardianship of her, and Kate's heartstrings tugged sharply when she saw the despondent child.

The memory of that six-year-old boy whose parents would never see him again propelled Kate toward the girl before she even realized she was changing directions.

Little did Kate know that by the time she finished that first conversation with Alexis, she would be stupidly in love with the beautiful doll of a girl with her porcelain features, vibrant orange hair, and arresting baby blues.

How it was possible for a child to be _that_ adorable and yet have a father be _that_ irresponsible to lose her in a mall, Kate had no idea. Did he not see how precious Alexis was, how very delicate and fragile her tiny life was?

A bubble of indignant anger rose up inside of her, and Kate tried to suppress it. This wasn't the time to let her personal opinions and feelings overcome her, especially when she could feel the soothing beat of Alexis' heart against her chest.

She only hoped that her hunch was right and the crazed dad she'd seen running by earlier was this little girl's father.

It wasn't until Kate had been walking around the mall for a couple of minutes that she realized she had no idea where she was supposed to go to find mall security. They always seemed to be milling about in the background, but now that she was actually looking for them, it's like they all went into hiding. She hadn't seen any information booths along the way either.

Maybe she should head back into Neiman Marcus and ask customer service. Actually, that's probably the first thing she should have done.

Sometimes her own brilliance amazed her.

So did her ability to direct sarcasm at herself.

Just as she was about to turn back to the store, a hoarse shout stopped her in her tracks.

"Alexis!"

"Daddy!" shrieked the girl in her arms, and Kate almost dropped her from reflex.

Jeez, kids were loud.

"Kate, Kate! That's my daddy. That's Daddy!" Alexis cried out repeatedly as she wriggled in Kate's grasp.

The detective took the hint and placed the girl on the ground, nearly losing her balance when Alexis took off faster than it should be possible for a four-year-old and barreled straight into the man she'd seen earlier.

"Daddy!"

"Alexis, oh God, Alexis, you're alright," mumbled the man into the hair of his daughter as he kept alternating between checking her all over for injuries and hugging her tight. The expression of utter relief on his face and in his voice was so profound that Kate almost let him off the hook for losing sight of his daughter in the first place.

Almost. But not quite.

Kate walked up to them slowly, not wanting to intrude on their father-daughter moment, but also knowing that she had to make sure that this guy knew better than to let his young daughter out of sight like that again. She knew that having his daughter go missing was something out of his worst nightmare, and she even understood that it was probably a fluke that Alexis got away from him like that.

But her memories of another lost child superimposed itself on the sweetness of Alexis' visage, and Kate knew that she couldn't _not_ say anything.

"I take it you're Alexis' dad?" she asked when she was within a couple of steps of them.

The man lifted his head to look at her, and for the first time, Kate got a good look at his face.

Kate ruthlessly bit back the gasp that wanted to escape her lips.

He was Richard Castle.

He was Richard friggin' Castle.

He was Richard her-favorite-friggin'-author Castle.

Did she say holding a four-year-old felt surreal?

No, no. _This_ was surreal. And unbelievable. And plain crazy.

And she really needed to not squeal like a fangirl because that would just be embarrassing.

…

For the second time in five minutes, Richard Castle felt like he'd just gotten the wind knocked out of him.

Just when he finally managed to catch his breath from finding Alexis, fate had to knock him back on his ass with the most strikingly beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life.

He really needed to shut his mouth, but _holy smokes!_ wow.

Her voice had been the first to catch his attention, a deep smoky alto that brought to mind all sorts of improper images of beds and clothes strewn all over the floor. His eyes followed with a slow journey up miles of legs and past dips and curves made to entice a man.

He didn't mean to come off as such a creeper, but he really shouldn't be held accountable for his actions when presented with _that_.

He wouldn't say her beauty was like that of an angel or her innate sensuality, that of a siren. Oh no. That was altogether far too cliché.

In fact, as he wracked his writer's inventory of adjectives and similes and comparisons, he could come up with nothing fitting save for a single word: _extraordinary_.

Then one of her finely sculpted eyebrows lifted in an expression of derision and he realized that he never answered her question.

"Uh, yeah. Yes. Alexis is my daughter. I'm her dad."

He almost smacked himself.

Suave, Ricky. Real suave.

The woman's lightly amused expression told him that she wasn't impressed either.

He cleared his throat and stood up, lifting Alexis in his arms as he did so. He needed to regain his composure, and one of the best ways he'd found to do that over the years was to utilize his usually towering height. Except, even standing at his full six feet two inch frame, he barely cleared the top of the woman's head.

Good lord, she was an Amazon queen, and he was in so far over his head.

He cleared his throat and tried to salvage what was no doubt a terrible first impression. "Thanks for finding my daughter, Miss…" he trailed off purposefully.

She gave him a look that all too clearly said _Really?_

He shrugged. _Yup._

Finally, she answered, "Beckett. _Detective_ Kate Beckett."

"Detective," he echoed in surprise.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, detective. And I think it goes without saying, but you really need to keep a closer eye on your daughter. She's a wonderful girl, and you might not always get so lucky."

The reminder was like a bucket of cold water poured over his head. He'd never been more terrified in his life than the moment he turned around and Alexis was just _gone_. Amid a harrowing hour of desperate searching, he didn't need to be a best-selling author for all the worst-case scenarios to draw him under an ocean of despair.

"I know. Believe me, I know," he said, the weight of dread still thrumming through his veins and thickening his voice.

Detective Beckett tilted her head just the slightest bit, and while he wouldn't say that she softened, something indefinable changed in her stance.

"What do you know, Daddy?" asked Alexis and that dear voice brought him back out of the bleak thoughts still running rampant in his head.

He touched his nose to hers and reveled in her responding giggle. "That you, my little pumpkin, are in big trouble for just disappearing like that. Where'd you go anyway?"

Alexis averted her gaze and started playing with the collar of his red button-down shirt. She always did that when she was embarrassed or knew that she did something bad. "I wanted to play hide-n-seek 'cause I got bored."

Rick tightened his hold on her. "Oh, pumpkin, Daddy's sorry too. I didn't mean to make you bored. But Alexis, you need to listen to me carefully. If you ever get bored again when we're in outside of home, I need you to tell me, okay? Can you do that?"

Alexis nodded. "Okay."

"Tell me what you'll do the next time you get bored in public."

"I'll come tell you, Daddy," she repeated dutifully.

"That's my girl," he smiled proudly and kissed her forehead.

He turned his attention to the detective. While he normally wouldn't explain himself to people he barely knew, he felt this inexplicable need for her to understand that Alexis meant more to him than his own life. He wasn't an irresponsible dad who was too self-absorbed to care for his daughter.

"Look, Detective, I know it may be hard to believe considering the circumstances, but Alexis is the most important thing in the world to me. I would never say that I'm the world's best father, but I want you to know that this has never happened before and, Lord willing, it never will again."

A strange expression came over Detective Beckett's face, and if Rick were pressed to define it, he might have said that it was confusion.

"Mr. Castle, you don't need to explain yourself to me."

"I know. But I just…wanted you to know."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure him out no doubt. If she got an answer, he'd appreciate it if she shared it with the class because he had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Instead, after a brief pause, she simply said, "Okay."

"Okay then."

They stared at each other for another long moment, and Rick found himself thinking, trite as it was, that he could get lost in her eyes for forever. His gaze drifted briefly to graze across her high cheekbones and straight blade of a nose, then down to lips that just begged to be tasted and treasured. But his perusal inevitably ended up back at her eyes. She had such mysterious eyes, an ever-shifting plane of browns and greens that drew him in and held him captive.

She was the first to look away, and Rick almost physically felt it when the connection broke.

Jeez, what the hell _was_ that? He'd never, ever been hit so hard with a single look before. He could still feel currents of electricity humming up and down his nerves.

She cleared her throat. "Well, I'm glad that Alexis is okay. I should probably be going now."

Wait, what? She was leaving? But, but how was he supposed to see her again?

She turned to leave before Alexis called out, "Kate, wait!"

Oh, bless his beautiful daughter.

"What's up, sweetheart?" The detective flashed a warm smile at Alexis, and Rick almost melted.

_Get a hold of yourself, man! _he berated himself.

"Can I see you again?" asked the four-year-old.

Beckett flicked a glance at Rick. He knew what that look meant, though he'd never seen it directed at him before. She wanted to be able to contact Alexis, but she could do without ever seeing _him_ again.

That was humbling and...oddly refreshing. Of all the women he'd met and known, they'd all wanted the opposite. It was nice to meet someone who wanted to get to know Alexis more than him. Of course, it would be just his luck that the one woman who _does_ want Alexis more than him is the one woman he's interested in enough to want her to want him.

And…that was super convoluted. So much for being a writer.

Beckett's bottom lip tucked itself between her teeth, and Rick almost died on the spot. How could one woman be so frickin' gorgeous?

He knew that she was trying to find a way to gently say _no_, and he was crazily thinking up ways to get her to say _yes_ when Alexis once again came to the rescue.

"Please?" she pleaded in a plaintive voice that she usually reserved for ice cream breakfasts and staying up late to watch cartoons. She batted her stunning blue eyes like a pro (his mother would be proud), and her lips pouted out just enough to be convincingly genuine.

Rick had fallen victim to that very look and that very voice often enough to know that even one of Detective Beckett's resolve wouldn't be able to resist for long.

Sure enough, only seconds later, Beckett yielded. "Okay, how about this? If you really want to see me again, you can ask for Detective Beckett at the 12th Precinct, okay?"

Alexis scrunched up her nose. "What's a pre… pre-sink?"

Beckett grinned and took a step closer so that she could tap her on the cheek. "Precinct. That's where I work."

"Oh, okay. We'll come visit, won't we, Daddy?"

"We sure will."

Beckett smiled in response but it was obvious that she didn't really think they would. Oh, how little she knew about them Castles.

Wait…

She'd called him _Mr. Castle_.

"I never told you my name. How'd you…" he trailed off, and then his lips split into a huge grin when understanding struck him. "You're a fan!"


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I've basically been in hibernation these past couple of days (and by hibernation I mean that I've ignored everything in favor of rewatching old Castle episodes to prepare for the finale - gah!), and I really wasn't planning on working on this until I've had time to medically recover from the heart attacks I'm going to get tonight, but then I woke up this morning and this told me to write itself. So I did._

_Here's a short update to help tide you over until the madness occurs. Thanks for reading!_

_(And seriously, while I appreciate so many people adding this to their story-alerts, it's a little disturbing to see how skewed the ratio is between reviews and story-alerts. Please let me know what your thoughts are! Thanks!)_

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Chapter Three

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Did Kate say it would be embarrassing to squeal like a fangirl?

Scratch that. This was worse. Much much worse.

Her mouth worked—open and close, open and close—but she couldn't seem to get anything intelligible out.

_Get it together, girl!_

She'd been doing well enough this whole time, not letting slip just how big of a fan she really was. She thought she'd nailed the confidently detached but concerned for the child vibe. She could pretend for just a few more minutes that she wasn't constantly suppressing the urge to jump up and down and ask for his autograph (which she happened to already have signed in a copy of one of his books).

She'd done well. She really had.

And now all because of a slip of a tongue, she was busted.

How the hell was she supposed to play it cool now?

Obfuscate. She was good at that.

She licked her lips in a subconsciously nervous gesture. "I wouldn't say _fan_ exactly. I just...enjoy the genre."

"Ah... the genre. Right. That's why you're blushing."

"I'm not blushing," she responded automatically.

She was _so_ not blushing.

…Was she?

His periwinkle eyes lit with humor, and his grin was infuriatingly smug.

And attractive.

That's just not fair. Smug people weren't supposed to be attractive. And tall. He still had a few inches over her even though she was wearing four-inch heels to bolster her statuesque five-nine height. And he was surprisingly well-built, from what she could tell beneath his well-tailored shirt and fitted, stonewash jeans.

_Stop it, Katie. You are _so_ not just standing there checking out Richard Castle._

Okay, so she was, but she wasn't about to let him know that.

She crossed her arms over her chest (_way to not look defensive, Katie_) and cleared her throat. "I've got to go. Now." She turned her gaze to Alexis and felt a sincere smile tug her lips upwards. "It was really nice meeting you, Alexis. Remember not to run off by yourself next time you get bored, okay?"

"Okay. It was nice to meet you too, Kate."

Kate uncrossed her arms and brushed at the invisible lint on her pants before giving Castle a curt nod. "Mr. Castle."

His self-assured grin had smoothed into a lightly amused turn of his lips. "Detective," he replied in kind, though his eyes were still twinkling with all sorts of mischief.

_Knees, please hold up for just a little while longer._

One last nod, then she turned around to leave.

"Oh, and Detective?"

She paused, drilled her features into an irritated look, and then turned back to face him. "What, Castle?"

"We'll be seeing you."

She narrowed her eyes at him, then flipped up an eyebrow. "Sure you will."

Now to go home and flail like a moron.

…

"Beckett, we've got a sting to prep for."

The detective in question looked up from the thick stack of paperwork she'd been laboriously working through.

Every time he saw that girl, Detective Ross Evans was reminded of how young she really was. How old was the kid, really? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?

Young enough to be his daughter if he'd had that good fortune.

Unluckily for him, Evans was just another cop whose job took more from him than just time and countless hospital stays. It had also taken away two marriages and his chance at having a family.

Ah, damn it. Now he was going all sentimental. Old age really does work a number on a guy.

"Who're we after?" asked Beckett, already shoving her stack of papers to the far corner of her desk.

He snickered a little inwardly at how eagerly she abandoned her paperwork. Bet she didn't realize that she'd be spending the majority of her time going through miles and miles of papers when she first applied for the Academy.

"The name's Marvin Osminkowski," Evans replied as he tossed the file on her desk.

She furrowed her brows with a frown. "Doesn't ring a bell."

Evans tapped the file. "Probably because we all know and love him as Oz."

"Ah, Oz. Nice guy," she deadpanned as she flipped open the folder to peruse the information.

Oz's name came through their desks at Vice every now and then as he'd landed himself a pretty hot gig pedaling high-end products to the city's upper echelon. The problem was that the guy was as slick as his hair; he operated out of a circuit of night clubs, but because he owned a network of waiters, bartenders, bouncers, and what-have-you as lookouts for badges, he always managed to slip the noose before Vice ever actually got their hands on him.

"Hasn't he been off the grid for a while? Where did we get the intel?" she enquired without looking up.

"We're piggybacking on an operation that Organized Crime has been working for a while."

"It says here that we're going to be working on a joint task force with OC and Narc."

"That's right. The detectives that'll be working this assignment with you should be here soon. Javier Esposito out of OC and Kevin Ryan from Narc."

"I know Esposito. We were in the Academy together."

"Good to know. Especially since it's going to be just the three of you inside. We can't afford to scare off Oz again. We're looking to pin him on more than just dealing. Good ol' Mr. Ozminkowski here got himself involved in a much bigger drug cartel."

"Whoa, wait. This says that the op is going down tonight. That's way too little time to prep."

He shrugged and leaned against the side of her desk. "Don't worry about most of it. OC has it all planned out already. All you gotta do is follow the plan."

"Then what the hell did they need me for?" Beckett often got irritated if she didn't get a hand in putting together the strategy herself. She was smart, very hands-on, and more devious than she appeared. She was going to make one hell of a name for herself.

But for now…

Evans smirked. "They needed a pretty girl."

Beckett leveled a glare at him.

It was an open joke at Vice that Beckett got called in on almost any undercover operation requiring a female cop to act as bait. The first couple of times, Beckett had been somewhat flattered to know that her femininity was still as potent as ever regardless of the fact tnat she worked in such a male-dominated field and that the higher-ups trusted her sound judgment and quick reflexes enough to have her take part in operations that went wrong more often than not.

That is, until the leers from her fellow policemen started up. One day she got so fed up with one of the guys directing misogynistic comments and dirty looks at her that she challenged him to a sparring session and proceeded to the wipe the floor with his ass.

Apparently, it was a remarkably therapeutic session, and none of the guys openly leered at her again.

Still, the good-natured teasing had never really died down, and Evans had to admit that it was fun needling the girl.

Evans chuckled heartily before sobering a little. "Ah, we're going to miss you around here, kid."

"What's that?"

He leaned in and lowered his voice. "Got word that your transfer request is just about to go through."

She tried to tamp down on the excitement that the words elicited in her, but she still couldn't stop how her voice went a little high when she exclaimed, "Seriously?"

"Yup. Still can't believe you're ditching us for Homicide though."

"You know it's not like that, Evans."

"Yeah, yeah," he said as he made a little waving motion with his hand. His tone was teasing, but he knew exactly why she wanted to get into Homicide.

A part of him couldn't help but worry for the girl he'd been looking after ever since she got into Vice as a rookie detective. She was tough and smart and one hell of a cop, but she was also stubborn and just a little reckless. Her mom's murder was like a stone around her neck. She was fine on dry land, but the moment she fell into water, she'd drown first thing.

He masked his concern and hoped like hell that Captain Montgomery knew what he was doing by approving her transfer to Homicide.

"Just send us a box of cookies every now and then and we'll call it even."

Beckett grinned. "What? So that I can contribute to that tub of lard you call a stomach?"

Evans cuffed her lightly on the head. "Watch it, kid."


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: And so begins a long, long four months until September..._

_Thanks so much for all the support thus far! I'm really enjoying writing this one, so I'm glad that people are having fun reading it too!_

* * *

Chapter Four

* * *

In hindsight, Kate really shouldn't have told Rick Castle and his daughter to ask for her at the station.

She was a professional, a female cop who'd flown in the face of societal convention to dominate in a male-heavy field. The last thing she needed was a semi-celebrity bringing down her credibility simply by association.

In her defense, she hadn't really thought that Rick Castle would actually bring his daughter to look for her at the Precinct. In fact, she hadn't really thought that he or his daughter would remember her once the day of the incident had passed. After all, he was a semi-celebrity who probably had plenty of people to see and things to do, and she had no idea how long the memory retention span of a four-year-old was, but it seriously couldn't be all that long, right?

But remember they had, and now there was a uniform informing her that a Mr. Richard Castle and Alexis Castle were asking for her in the lobby.

Kate blinked at him unresponsively, her pen poised over the case notes for tonight's operation.

"What?" she finally managed.

"There's a Mr. Castle asking for you downstairs."

_You have _got_ to be kidding me_.

"Are you sure?"

It was a stupid question to ask, and by the raised eyebrow the uniform slanted at her, he thought so too. "That's what they said."

"Huh."

"So…Are you going down? Or do I need to make excuses?"

"Ah. Right. Don't worry about it. I'm heading down now."

She dropped her pen and scooted out of her chair. She smoothed out the natural wrinkles sitting down had created on her button-down and took a discrete, deep breath.

She had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

…

Rick had no idea what he was thinking.

After that first meeting with Detective Kate Beckett, he hadn't been able to get her out of his head. He was completely taken with her beauty, yes, but more than that, he was entranced by her personality. She had that badass, self-assured detective vibe down to a tee, but what equally intrigued him were the glimpses of a shy, slightly awestruck girl meeting (what he liked to think) a favorite author.

It was kind of adorable—a word he never thought he'd associate with a woman as stunning as Beckett, but there it was.

She was adorable and saucy and sexy and caring and totally stuck in his head.

His endeavor to tone down his admiration to a level somewhere less than obsessive was made far more difficult by the fact that his daughter couldn't stop singing the good detective's praises. Ever since they got home from the mall that day, Alexis kept going on and on about how pretty and nice Kate was.

As if Rick could forget.

So, despite his resolve to wait a little longer before he caved in to the inevitable, Rick only managed three days before he couldn't take it anymore—both his own urgings and the incessant whining of his daughter—and scheduled a field trip to the 12th Precinct.

He'd been to other precincts before to do research for his books, but this was his first time at the 12th. Judging from the external structure and the layout of the lobby, this precinct wasn't all too different from the other police stations he'd visited.

There was _one_ big difference, however, and that was that this was the only precinct that could call itself home to one Detective Kate Beckett. And that made all the difference in the world.

He winced at the melodramatic and terrifyingly sappy voice in his head. He really needed to find a way to tamp it down. It was getting distracting. And embarrassing.

Alexis tugged on his hand, and he bent down to address her. "What is it, pumpkin?"

"Does Kate really work here?"

"That's right."

"When's she gonna come see us?"

"Patience, grasshopper. The nice policeman has already gone to let her know that we're here. I'm sure it'll just be a few more minutes."

"I miss Kate."

He bit back the _I miss her, too _because it was entirely too illogical to miss someone he'd only just met and with whom he'd spent maybe a grand total of about fifteen minutes.

Then again, this whole situation was illogical and bordering on ridiculous in the first place, and he'd never been one to let logic ruin his stories before. No point in starting now.

So he let the truth in his heart speak for him. "I do too, baby."

Alexis turned indignant eyes at him. "I'm not a baby. I'm four years old."

Rick sucked in his lips to stop the smile that threatened to spread across his face at the sight of Alexis' mini scowl. He was about to respond, but a familiar voice spoke first.

"Four years old, huh? Wow, you really are a big girl, Alexis."

Alexis looked past Rick and let out a happy shriek when she caught sight of Detective Beckett headed towards them from the large, industrial-looking elevator.

Yeah, he needed to work on getting her to not scream like that. Or even just tone down the volume, at least.

"Kate!"

He didn't bother hiding his grin of affection and fatherly pride as he watched Alexis half-run, half-toddle her way to Beckett.

"Hey, kiddo," greeted the detective warmly as she bent to give his daughter a tight hug.

Ah, what he wouldn't give to be the recipient of that hug…

When Beckett straightened, she did so with Alexis in her arms and chatting with the little girl as if it was a normal occurrence.

Rick was once again struck by how difference this Detective Beckett was from the women that tended to flock around him. Most of them wouldn't have bothered to pick up Alexis. In fact, most of them tended to ignore the tot who wasn't yet tall enough to reach their hips in favor of turning their charms on him.

Beckett was different. She engaged Alexis as if she were a seasoned conversationalist; it was something Rick had tried to do from the beginning to ensure that Alexis knew that her thoughts were important and her creativity something to be treasured. He never would have imagined that Beckett would be the one to do the same without even having to think about it.

His smile was way too goofy for a second meeting, so he used the time it took for Beckett to reach him to school his expression into something a little less telling.

"Detective Beckett. So good to see you again."

"Mr. Castle. Shame I can't say the same," she smirked, one of her eyebrows quirked up in challenge.

Ooo! So _that's _how she wanted to play it. Okay. He could do that. Gladly.

"You wound me, Detective, with your disregard."

"I have a feeling that your ego is much more resilient than that."

"I'd be happy to let you stroke it to test that theory."

Whoops. That came out a lot dirtier than he'd meant it. By the narrowed glare Beckett directed at him, she'd thought so too.

He shrugged and fixed a charming grin on her. She rolled her eyes.

"So what brings you two to my domain?"

"Well, you did say that if we wanted to see you, we could come find you here."

"Yeah, I said that, and I meant it," she said to Alexis in an aside before turning her attention back to Castle, "but you weren't supposed to—That is—"

"You didn't think we'd actually drop by," he cut in.

She shrugged a little self-consciously. "Well, yeah. I'm sure you have better things to be doing than looking me up."

"Au contraire, my dear detective. I spend quite a bit of my time in police stations."

The corner of her lips quirked upwards. "Get arrested much?"

"That too. Ah, good times." His let the focus of his eyes haze over before shaking his head with a laugh. "No, no, I meant that I hang out at various precincts for research sometimes. You know, for those books that you aren't a fan of."

Her mouth pursed into a thin line while her glare intensified. Mm, yeah, that was a good look on her. Then again, did the woman even _have_ a bad look? He highly doubted it.

He worked hard to keep his expression blissfully innocent.

Fortunately, before Detective Beckett gave into her visibly homicidal urges, his daughter felt this to be an opportune moment to ask the question they came here for in the first place.

"Do you wanna have dinner with us tonight?"

Rick tried not to look too eager for her answer, but he had a bad feeling about it when Beckett glanced at him briefly with an inscrutable look (she had a lot of those, he noticed) before brushing back a lock of Alexis' hair and tucking it behind her ear. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I have something very important to do tonight."

Alexis' hopeful expression turned crestfallen in a heartbeat, and Rick kicked himself for not considering all the possibilities and ramifications first. He had always been one to indulge in his whims without really thinking them through, but he should've contacted Beckett himself first before letting Alexis get involved. Maybe it was arrogant or foolishly optimistic, but Rick really hadn't expected Beckett to just turn them down like that.

"Don't look like that, pumpkin. I'm sure Detective Beckett has a lot to do," he said, surprised by how strong his sense of disappointment was.

Beckett did that bottom lip tugging thing with her teeth, and he hoped that it wasn't a habit with her because if it was, she was going to kill him.

Hell, she was probably going to kill him anyway.

She nibbled it for a little longer (God, he just wanted to soothe that lip with his fingers and, oh yes, his mouth). Then she surprised him by asking, "Would you be free for lunch tomorrow?"

"Yes, absolutely," he responded before the question was even completely formed.

Fortunately for him, Alexis yelled, "Yes!" just as quickly.

Not so fortunately, Beckett didn't miss his eagerness.

She lifted one of those expressive eyebrows at him, and he willed the hot flush threatening to take over his face to stay below his neckline. He was Richard freakin' Castle, for god's sake. How was it that Beckett could fluster him so badly?

He cleared his throat and tried to play it cool. "So, we'll come pick you up at twelve?"

"Uh, no. I think it's better if I meet you somewhere."

"Embarrassed to be associated with us, Beckett?"

"Alexis, no. You? Hm."

She was joking, but he could tell she kind of meant it too. That…unexpectedly hurt.

He shook it off with a sardonic grin. "I _am_ a best-selling author, you know."

"As you've reminded me both times we've met," she retorted, unimpressed. She changed the subject. "Do you know where Remy's is?"

"Sure. Just a couple of blocks from here. Excellent burgers."

"And shakes!" added Alexis.

"And shakes," Rick affirmed.

Beckett nodded. "The best. You want to meet there then?"

"Sure."

"Okay." She looked around and shuffled her feet a little. "Well, I guess…I should head back up. Lots of stuff to do."

"Right. Of course."

He held out his hands to transplant Alexis from Beckett's arms to his. Alexis wasn't ready to let go yet, though.

"We'll see you tomorrow then, Kate?" she asked.

Beckett smiled at her. "Promise."

…

Kate watched in stunned disbelief as Rick Castle and his daughter strolled cheerfully out of the precinct's large double doors.

Did that really just happen?

She surreptitiously pinched herself on the arm and winced. _Ow!_

Okay, so this wasn't some weird dream.

If it wasn't a dream...

What the hell had she been _thinking_ to ask them to lunch?

The answer was that she obviously hadn't been. After all, people like her didn't get involved with people like _him_, even if she'd caved for Alexis' sake. (Somehow that reasoning didn't sound as convincing when the idiot fangirl part of her was still catatonic from glee.)

She shook her head as if that could erase her stupidity and headed back up to Vice.

The operation better go down smoothly tonight, or else she was liable to shoot something (someone) just for the hell of it.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: I'm super, super amazed by the feedback I've gotten for this story. Like seriously. Crazy. Thank you all so much!_

_And also...Yay for the official word that Castle's coming back for Season 5! (As if I really had any doubts. Psh...)_

_**Random Fun Fact**__: So I was looking through my document of story ideas that I jot down for Castle, and I wrote this line, "She's so used to of him coming when she calls that she's lost when he doesn't" about four months ago when I first discovered _Castle_. Remind you of anything? Yeah. I'm psychic like that. :D_

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to "Fever's Burning Up" by Alyx. I don't even own the song. But, I know it was the background music playing when Paula Haas first appeared in 2x05, so that's why I mentioned it specifically.

Oh, and yes I know that the name _Serenity_ is overused in conjunction with _Castle_, but I'm too lazy to think up another name, so sue me. (...Actually, don't. Please.)

* * *

Chapter Five

* * *

Rick Castle felt astoundingly at peace with the world.

After all, he had the most adorable and smartest little girl in the world to call his daughter; he was a best-selling author raking in millions with his Derrick Storm series; he lived in a gorgeous loft he'd only dreamt of having when he was a kid; his car of choice was a friggin' cherry-red Ferrari.

And to top it all off…

He had a date with Detective Kate Beckett.

…Okay, so it was more like his _daughter_ landed _them_ a lunch date with Beckett, but bah! What's a few mere details?

He gave himself a moment to revel in his good fortune.

Then "Fever's Burning Up" started going off, and when he recognized the ringtone, nearly all his good feelings dissipated.

With a sigh, he answered his book agent's call. "Paula."

"Ricky, you need to show your face tonight at Club Serenity," she rattled off without preamble.

"Another publicity stunt?"

"Another? You haven't done anything for your image in months. Your divorce was finalized two _years_ ago, Ricky. You can't hang on to that excuse anymore."

"I wasn't using it as an excuse."

In truth, he used to enjoy these shallow excursions into the world of beautiful women and alcohol, especially after everything with Meredith. It made for a good distraction, and he could admit now that the hurt his ex-wife caused him when she cheated on him with her director was greatly soothed by the throngs of women who found him attractive. It might have been a juvenile reaction, but it was a much-needed balm at the time.

Now though, now he couldn't help but feel that all of these parties and social outings were the same. Same people, same drinks, same praise, same _fakes_.

When he was younger, he never would have thought that the fast life would turn monotonous so quickly, but it _was_. Boring. No mystery at all.

Nothing like a certain detective…

Paula sliced into his thoughts with her no-nonsense tone that brooked no excuses. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, are you coming out tonight or what?"

His mother should be home tonight to look after Alexis, and he _was_ feeling in an exceptionally good mood now that he (they, reminded himself) had a lunch date with Detective Beckett…

Ah, what the hell. He'll save this up for another chance to drive Paula up the wall.

"Yeah, I'll be there as soon as my mother comes home to look after Alexis."

Rick could almost see Paula rolling her eyes on the other side of the phone. "Jeez, Ricky, why don't you just get a nanny like everyone else."

It was an old argument that they've already had several times, and Rick had refused enough times that it was now merely obligatory for Paula to bring it up. She knew he'd say no.

He played up the role of egotistical bastard he knew she saw him as. "Because Paula, Richard Castle is obviously not just _everyone else_."

Paula snorted. "Just show up, will ya?"

…

"Esposito, I can hear you smirking from all the way across the van," Kate grumbled as she readjusted the tight material of her dress.

She loved dressing up as much as the next girl, but sometimes these undercover ops made her wish that she was a guy. At least they could easily hide their badges and cuffs (and guns if they weren't checked for it) in their looser clothing.

Dressed in a midnight black sheath that clung to her like a second skin and which hem ended several inches above decent, Kate really didn't have too many options when it came to stashing her gun, cuffs, and badge. In the end, she'd had to forego the cuffs and the badge, but she refused to go in without at least her smaller backup piece strapped to her inside of her thigh.

Club Serenity was known for being a fairly peaceful club with a high-class clientele. They were also the same kind of fancies who didn't appreciate being scanned for weapons at the door, so they were clear for going in with their pieces.

"I was just thinking that you should really stay in Vice. You'll break a company record for how many stings you participate in," Esposito teased, his dark eyes laughing even in the dim lighting of the surveillance van.

From what she remembered from their days at the Academy together, Javier Esposito was a Special Forces vet before he decided to go into law enforcement. He'd had a brief stint in Robbery while still a uniform, and apparently moved to OC sometime in the last year or two.

They hadn't really been close back in their Academy days, but she very clearly remembered that Esposito had a smartass mouth that he liked to let rattle off.

She glared at him, but the effect was probably somewhat diminished by the fact that she was reaching up her skirt to adjust the thigh holster. Kate had never really been self-conscious about her body, but it was hard to glare at someone and simultaneously have her hands under a skirt that was already too short.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Laugh it up while you can. For your information, though, I should be in Homicide by the end of this year, so shove it," she retorted.

At least she hoped so. Ah, they were all cops. Bragging and one-upping each other were their bread and water.

"You're kidding? I applied for Homicide earlier this year too."

The third member of their undercover team, Kevin Ryan joined in then. "Can you imagine if they stick us all in the same precinct?"

"What? You're going for Homicide too?" asked Esposito.

The Narc cop nodded. "Just put in the papers a couple of weeks ago."

Kate stopped messing with her holster and her dress to study her partners for this operation.

Ryan looked a little too fresh-faced for Narc. There was just something about his earnest blue eyes and clean-shaven jaw that practically screamed choir-boy, despite the fact that he totally owned the vibrant blue silk shirt with its top buttons popped and the black slacks that encased surprisingly muscular legs.

As for Esposito, he'd gone the all black route, which combined with the dark lighting gave him that mysterious vibe that women seemed to go crazy over. He carried himself with the ease and confidence that seemed inherent in all the Latino guys she'd ever met. Must be something in the water, she mused.

Neither of them were really her type (she preferred taller guys, and by that she meant men who she still had to look up to in her four-inch heels—someone like Richard Castle…_Whoa! Stop right there, mind_), but she could appreciate eye candy when she saw it.

Then she smirked. "Well boys, it'll be my pleasure to show you the ropes when you get transferred."

Esposito and Ryan exchanged an incredulous look. "Did she just—"

"Dude, not cool."

Almost in unison, they turned a look of challenge on her.

"I propose a bet," declared Esposito.

She narrowed her eyes. "What kind of bet?"

"Whoever makes it into Homicide first calls the shots," finished Ryan.

She snorted. "Guys, there are dozens of precincts. We probably won't even be assigned to the same one once we get in. Besides, it's not really up to us who calls the shots."

Esposito shook his head. "Not necessarily, chica. I heard that the 12th is in need of another homicide team. Maybe they're picking it from our pool of applicants."

She stared down their crossed arms and raised chins and had to suppress a burst of laughter. If she weren't so amused by how much they looked like overgrown kids issuing a backyard challenge, she'd be freaked out by how in sync they were.

"Fine. You're on. Now can we get this show on the road?"

…

On paper, the basic premise of the sting was simple.

Esposito and Ryan would go in, scope out the place, find the exits and make sure that Oz wouldn't try to make an easy escape.

Kate's job was to find Oz and bait him into making a hand-to-hand sale to her.

Simple.

The problem was, plans were always easy on paper and freaking messed up when it came to the actual execution. Hence why undercover operations were always a last resort.

Details were always missed, like an extra bodyguard no one saw, a drunk guy who wouldn't leave you alone, a concealed weapon drawn before you could disarm it…

Or, in Kate's case, Richard Castle.

She'd waited about twenty minutes after Ryan and Esposito went in to make her entrance, and it had all gone without a hitch.

She made a lazy circuit around the dance floor once in, stopping by the bar to order something she wasn't actually going to drink. She spotted Ryan and Esposito on opposite sides of the dance floor, so she looked between them to spot a lounge of sofas partitioned from the rest of the club by a white lattice wall.

It was hard to get a clear look from her angle, but she could make out a small group of people, mostly women, gathered on the sofa. She couldn't make out his facial features, but she was pretty sure that the man with jet black, gel-slicked hair and a girl under each arm was Oz.

_Showtime_, she thought as her body rolled to the beat of the music, all the while making her steady way through the crowd and toward Oz.

She was about midway through the dance floor when she locked eyes with the familiar blue gaze of Richard Castle, and everything went to hell.

_Don't come closer. Don't call my name. Don't don't don't!_

He did. All of the above.

"Detective Beckett, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You turned down my daughter for dinner tonight because you wanted to go clubbing? I thought you said you had work?" he said as soon as he was within speaking distance.

The loud thump-thumping of the music's bass line meant that he practically shouted the words, and she cringed at the thought of everyone close by who might have heard him. Her eyes darted around and spotted a waiter and a bouncer exchanging words near the front entrance of the club, their gazes trained on her.

_Shit!_

She tried to disappear into the crowd, but Castle had a hand on her arm that prevented her from slipping away. It wasn't a tight grip, but it wasn't one that she could break without making an even bigger scene.

Everything was made worse when she spied of a hint of hurt hidden beneath Castle's nonchalant façade. She could only imagine how bad this looked to him.

Castle's look of recrimination segued into an overdone leer, and she knew that it was to make up for his disappointment. "You know, if you wanted, I would've happily brought you here myself."

Jeez, she didn't have time for this.

"Damn it, shut up, Castle," she hissed, all the while keeping an eye on Oz and another on the bouncer heading their way.

She cursed under her breath again.

"What? What is it?" Castle pressed, his features morphing from amused and blasé to serious.

"Dance with me," she suddenly demanded, and before he could formulate a response, she yanked him close, draping her arms over his shoulders. She pressed the full length of her body against his and hoped like hell that he didn't feel the shiver course through her limbs at the heat of him. She let the music take over her physical responses and trained her focus on taking in the situation.

The bouncer paused and didn't come closer when he saw her grinding up against Castle, but he kept his eyes trained on her.

All was not lost. She just had to sell her being another wild party girl out for a good time with alcohol, dancing, and that extra special something.

Objective in mind, she moved seductively to the beat and let a wicked smile curve over her lips, one hand coming up to rake through the thick waves of her hair, the fingers of her other drawing circles at the nape of Castle's neck. Torsos pressed together like they were, Kate felt it in her bones when a sudden shudder rippled through Castle, and he took a long, steadying breath.

"B-Beckett? What're you doing?" he stuttered, and in other circumstances, she would have laughed with delight that she so easily affected him. She ignored the fact that her pupils were probably dilated, her nerves running wild, and it wasn't the adrenaline of being outed as a cop that did it.

Wasn't he supposed to be a writer? Why were his muscles so firm and the smell of him so intoxicating?

She turned her head slightly to the side so that the scent of him wasn't so overpowering and took a deep breath. She needed to concentrate on not getting her cover completely blown, if it wasn't already.

Kate was tempted to just say, _Dancing. Duh,_ just to see how he reacted, but she knew that she needed his cooperation now that he'd unknowingly butted into her sting in order to complete the operation.

She tugged his head down and spoke directly into his ear, the hot wash of her breath causing the little hairs there to rise up. "I'm undercover."

"Undercover?" he exclaimed in a whisper that was tinged in horror. "But I just—"

"Yeah, you almost blew my cover, but we're okay for now, so stop looking so tense. Now, you see that guy sitting on the sofa surrounded by all the women?"

He nodded.

"He's a dealer and I need to get him to sell to me. You think you can get us over there convincingly?"

The worry in his eyes faded as the gleam of excitement came to the forefront. Oh God, this was a bad idea involving him.

"You mean, you want me to help?"

She rolled her eyes even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Yes. Don't sound so excited. Oz is a dangerous guy, and I wouldn't involve you if I had another choice."

"But I get to do undercover work," he said eagerly, completely ignoring everything else she'd just said.

She relented. They were wasting too much time as it was. "Sure. I guess it counts as undercover."

"Can I just say? Best. Sting. Ever!"

* * *

_A/N: You see how they redid the review button so that it's an eyesore right there just SCREAMING at you to press it? Yeah? Yeah?_

_I think you should review just to get it out of your face. :D_


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: You guys are beyond incredible. The response to the last chapter was astounding. __(I was half-joking about the review button because I'd seen the change and thought that it was definitely a lot more, uh...eye-catching than it was before. But, hey, if it works...) In any case, t__hank you all so much for your continued interest and support._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Chapter Six

* * *

Kate really should have known better than to think that her crappy luck that night was going to change for the better.

As if running into Richard Castle during a sting wasn't warning enough, _of course_ there had to be that extra bodyguard no one saw, and _of course_ he had to have a switchblade on him, and _of course_ she had to get her and her freaking dress knifed open and bloodied.

At least the sting hadn't been a complete bust.

Acting like they were a tipsy couple and looking to score some of the good stuff, she and Castle had managed to make it over to the sofa where Oz was sitting within drawing any suspicion. They sat down where the gaggle of girls evicted themselves to make room for them at Oz's head nod, something that was probably helped along by the expensive yet understated elegance of Castle's TAG Heuer watch and his five hundred dollar, Italian leather shoes.

Kate made her pitch in the midst of lots of giggling and flirting and irritated thoughts of _jeez, why won't just he sell to me alright already_.

Just when they were about to make the exchange, with Oz sliding a hand clutching a small bag of white powder onto her knee and she coiling her muscles to ready herself for the spring, suddenly a high pitched squeal broke out and startled Oz into retracting his hand.

"Oh my God, is that Richard Castle?" shrieked a pretty blonde from across the dance floor and then suddenly there was a rush of motion with a horde of fangirls hurrying over to see their "favorite author."

Psh. Kate would bet big money that they'd probably never even read _Flowers for Your Grave._

Seeing that Oz was visibly shaken by the commotion, Kate tried to salvage the situation by suggesting that the two of them go somewhere a little more private when that goddamn thigh holster slipped past the hem of her dress, exposing the tip of the barrel of her piece.

For a heartbeat, there was complete silence in Kate's ears.

Then someone—one of the bouncers/bodyguards—shouted, "Gun!" and then everything was chaos.

Which of course somehow translated into her getting slashed at by a six foot six football player-like bodyguard while she tried to not let Oz escape. Fortunately, Ryan or Esposito, she wasn't sure which, managed to snatch up the slimy bastard before he got away.

By the time the commotion had died down, they had Oz under arrest for possession, and they probably had enough to book him for intent to distribute also.

Either way, Oz was under custody and the OC guys could take their stab at questioning him for his involvement in whatever criminal ring they suspected him to be a part of.

As for Kate, she was totally _done_ with undercover work.

(Or at least until the next assignment she was called upon to work.)

She clutched her lacerated side and wished that Castle would just stop hovering, for god's sake.

"I'm _fine_, Castle."

"You're bleeding," he insisted, his face pale in the blinking red-blue lights from the ambulance and police cars that had eventually arrived after they'd called in the incident.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. I hadn't noticed," she muttered, more irritated at herself than at Castle. The long but shallow gash that ranged from the bottom of her left rib and down to her hip hurt like a bitch, but that wasn't what upset her.

It was the fact that she'd let herself become so preoccupied with Castle that she'd missed the lurking bodyguard (stupid undercover operations that always had a freaking extra bodyguard lurking—what kind of stupid stereotype was that anyway?) and nearly screwed up the whole op.

Concern and guilt etched lines of worry onto his face, and she wished he would stop it because the wound really wasn't that bad, and she didn't need him to beat himself up over something he'd had no control over. Even if he had fans with the worst possible timing in the world.

"Stop looking like someone kicked your puppy, Castle."

"Oh yeah, because you getting stabbed is so much better than that."

"I didn't get stabbed. I got slashed at. And he barely scratched me."

"Detective, if the gaping hole in your dress is anything to go by, you have a gash on your side that's at least six inches long. That is not a scratch."

"It's closer to four inches, and it's barely even bleeding anymore. It's also shallow enough that I don't even need stitches."

Castle growled in frustration. "Are you always this stubborn?"

"I don't know. Are you always this annoying?" she shot back.

They glared at each other, and the sudden, completely inexplicable thrill chasing through her nerves startled her. Her limbs tingled and a lingering warmth suffused her abdomen.

She should not be excited by arguing with him. That made absolutely no sense at all. Who the hell had fun arguing?

Apparently she did.

And Castle too, if the darkening tint of his eyes meant what she thought it did.

Goosebumps broke out all over her skin, and when she shivered, she knew it wasn't because of the cold.

"Yo chica, for future reference you should try to avoid the knife. You know, kinda hurts if you touch the pointy end."

Kate and Castle's staring contest broke off when Esposito's voice sliced through the throbbing tension between them.

Oh gosh. Every single time Kate and Castle locked gazes, she couldn't help but to be drawn to him by some magnetism that refused to let her break away. This better be a temporary thing because it would be terribly debilitating if she and Castle get trapped in a stare-down every time they met each other's eyes.

(She ignored the voice inside—which sounded oddly like Lanie—telling her she should plant a wet one on Castle and screw logic.)

Thank God for Esposito's timely interruption. Then the OC detective's actual words registered.

Freaking _snarky_ Esposito, she amended.

She gathered her composure quickly and deadpanned, "Yeah, well, let's see _you _wear the dress and heels next time."

"Can't. You tore a hole in it," he volleyed back.

To add insult to injury, Ryan popped up seemingly out of nowhere to say, "Dead yet, Beckett?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not as dead as you will be if you don't tell me what's going on with Oz."

"Eh, wish I could, but you know how it is. The low man—woman," Ryan added with a nod toward her, "on the totem pole puts in all the work, and the higher pay grade gets all the fun."

She grimaced. Oh, she definitely knew. She couldn't wait for the promotion to Detective Second-Grade and finally getting to head her own team.

Ryan gestured at her wound. "You get that disinfected yet? The last thing we need is for you to contaminate us with your zombie germs."

"Zombies, bro?" Esposito leveled the Narc detective with a scowl. "Seriously? That's the best you could do?"

Kate shook her head at their antics, but appreciated the fact that they weren't coddling her. She preferred their masked concern to Castle's obvious distress.

Must be the cop in her because she was pretty sure that if someone told her a week ago that Richard Castle would be fretting over a shallow cut on her side, she would've laughed. And maybe hyperventilated a bit.

As it was, she was admittedly touched, but simultaneously annoyed by his dogged focus on an injury that really wasn't all that serious. Maybe she'd grown too hard in the last years, but she hated being made to feel so exposed and weak. Then again, she'd always been fiercely independent—even before her mother's murder.

Castle watched in thinly veiled fascination as Esposito and Ryan bicker like an old married couple (an entertaining development, indeed, considering they'd just met each other for the first time three days ago) for a couple more minutes before returning his attention to Kate.

"You know, under normal circumstances I would love the whole gallows humor you guys are running here, and I'd probably even steal a few lines for my books, but somehow I can't find this amusing."

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "This is nothing. You should have seen my team when we got trapped in the middle of a gun fight two years ago. Half of us were injured in some form or another and the other half that wasn't wouldn't stop complaining about how we got to take time off, and we were giving them double the paperwork. Cop affection. You learn to love it."

"Hm. I guess…it's just feels different when it happens in real life."

"Imagine that. Fiction isn't real. Wow," she responded dryly before she could think about it.

She felt a stab of self-consciousness flood her the minute she said it. Kate knew she had a tendency to drip sarcasm, and not everybody appreciated her brand of sardonic wit. Castle didn't know her well, and it would be easy for him to take her words as deriding rather than teasing. As annoyed as she was by his smothering worry, she didn't want to make him feel worse.

Whatever concerns she had however were relieved when Castle let out a surprised bark of laughter. "You are _merciless_," he said, voice tinged with awe.

She scrunched her brows in slight confusion. "Uh, thanks?"

"Definitely a compliment," he assured her, and then he waggled his eyebrows for good measure. "It's kinda hot."

Kate rolled her eyes, and she only hoped that the red flush suffusing her face wasn't visible in the striating red-blue lights that flooded the street.

…

"Castle, shouldn't you be home with Alexis?" Kate finally asked, having endured his unwavering stare for close to an hour now. She couldn't imagine what was so fascinating about her doing paperwork.

"Nope. I tucked her into bed before I left for the club, and my mother is home with her," he replied cheerfully. Too cheerfully, considering the fact that he'd refused to leave the precinct even though she'd told him that she was only filling in the reports for the night.

She tried another tactic. "You know you _really_ don't need to be here right? You've already given your statement."

"If I didn't already know that by the twentieth time you said that before this, I'd know now."

"Then why are you still here?"

Castle touched a hand to his chest in a melodramatic pose of feigned hurt. "Why Detective, if I didn't know better, I'd think that you're trying to get rid of me."

She favored him with a raised eyebrow. "Castle, you're sitting there watching me do paperwork. It's creepy."

"Please, Detective. You could never be creepy. Unless you happen to be a secret, crazy-fan stalker." He paused, then asked, "Are you a secret, crazy-fan stalker? Not that it matters. You still wouldn't be creepy. In fact, feel free to stalk me whenever you'd like."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Did I? Ah, well, the pitfalls of ambiguous pronouns."

She tossed her pen on her desk and pushed her chair back to face him straight-on. "Seriously, why are you still here? And stop deflecting."

He held her gaze for a beat, but soon glanced away, a wash of pale red creeping up his neck and over the rugged features of his face. Was he…embarrassed?

"I just want to make sure you get home safely," he finally admitted.

Okay, that was just completely unnecessary and totally condescending and utterly aggravating and…kind of sweet.

She hadn't had anyone worry about her, not like this anyway, in a very long time.

It was needless—she was a grown woman and a trained detective to boot—but she couldn't deny that the authenticity of his concern combined with the soulful gaze of his eyes was a bit adorable. Not a word she thought she'd ever associate with Rick Castle.

Kate bit her lip to suppress a smile and went for deadpan. "So your grand plan was to wait for me to finish my paperwork and then follow me home?"

"Yes? No, wait, that sounds stalkerish."

She couldn't help it then. She laughed. "Castle, you do realize that we've known each other for less than a day, don't you? I'm not likely to let anyone I've known for such a short period of time find out where I live."

He quirked an eyebrow at her teasingly. "Doubting my honor, are you?"

"Well, considering your unnatural obsession with watching me do paperwork…" she trailed off with what she knew was an amused twinkle in her eyes.

Strange. She'd never felt so…light after a case before. Working Vice wasn't her favorite thing, though they did occasionally have some fun cases—like that time they raided a whole bunch of BDSM clubs in Dungeon Alley, during which she learned more about bondage gear and sexual fetishes than she ever wanted to know. More often than not though, she came out of a case disheartened by the depths of depravity into which humanity could sink.

It wasn't just the drugs or the gambling or the prostitution by itself; it was the broken families ripped apart by addiction, the orphaned children left behind because Daddy or Mommy could no longer make the payments set by cutthroat loan sharks, the girls who were abused as children and never found a way out of the system they sold their bodies to survive.

Kate sometimes felt like vice was worse than murder in that the former was a chronic, slow-bleeding poison that left society rotted to its core.

She'd been with Vice for less than two years, and she was already feeling much older than her twenty-six years.

She never would have guessed that it'd be Richard Castle to draw out the girl who freely laughed and joked and flirted before the thirst for justice and harsh reality smothered her youthful levity. Go figure that while his books had been the anchor she held onto in a sea of despair following her mother's murder, the man himself would be the one to draw her back onto dry land.

Okay, now she was being a melodramatic twit.

Kate sighed, glanced at the clock and then down at her report. She didn't really absolutely _have_ to finish this by tonight, and she had a feeling that underneath all that good humor, Richard Castle wouldn't budge once he'd set his mind on something. And right now, he had his mind set on being all worried-like and getting her home safely.

Her injured side, now disinfected and bandaged with gauze, _was _starting to throb...

She gathered up her papers, put them into her filing cabinet, then turned off her computer. "Fine, let's go. You can watch me get in a cab—that's the extent of creepy stalking I'm allowing you tonight—and then you'll go home. Got it?"

He grinned like a nine-year-old given free rein in a candy store. She refused to let herself acknowledge that his face all lit up like that was all sorts of irresistible. "Are you saying you'll allow me other stalking rights on another night?" he said, waggling his eyebrows comically.

"You know, I could always just file a restraining order."

"You wouldn't. You'd miss Alexis."

"You can't just use your daughter as a bargaining chip."

"Sure I can. Alexis helps me get away with everything. Or, well, not everything, but a lot."

"I'll keep that in mind the next time you get arrested. By the way, how was the ride on that police horse you stole? I hear there was a lot of 'naked' excitement."

"Oooh, somebody's been looking up my record."

"Can never too careful. Who knows what kinds of whackos are out there masquerading as best-selling novelists."

"Thank you for remembering the best-selling part."

"Of course you would focus on that."

"Why wouldn't I? It was the only part that was important."

Kate shook her head at him, but as they stepped together out of the 12th Precinct's lobby and into the chill late night air, she couldn't deny that, at least for one night, Richard Castle made her job a little more fun. Even if he'd almost screwed up her operation.

She tried not to think too hard about what it meant that she wasn't even upset about it anymore.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Soooo very sorry this took a bit longer to come out. So much for my shorter chapters equal faster updates theory. For some reason, I seem incapable of writing short chapters. Le sigh._

_Anyhow, once again, thank you so much for your feedback! I've gotten a lot of incredibly nice reviews, and I'm just so honored that people seem to really enjoy this. Thanks for your support, and here be the next chapter!_

* * *

Chapter Seven

* * *

Rick woke up early the next morning.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that _Alexis _woke up early the next morning and decided that Daddy needed to wake up too. And the best way of doing that was, of course, to jump on him. Repeatedly.

Needless to say, Rick woke in a flash. He glanced blearily at the 6:02 a.m. blinking cheerily on the LED display of the bedside clock and groaned. "What're you doing up so early, pumpkin?"

"Lunch with Kate today, Daddy! Lunch with Kate!"

"Oh."

_Oh_.

He'd forgotten about it in light of all the excitement from last night, but Alexis was right. They had a lunch date with Beckett. As in he and Alexis were going to have lunch. With Beckett.

Ah yes. This was a very good morning. Even if it wasn't completely light out yet.

"When we gonna go?" asked Alexis, settling down on top on him with her knees pressed into his stomach.

A pang of melancholy shot through Rick when he thought about the fact that his little girl wasn't going to be small enough to kneel on his abdomen much longer. God, he hoped that she didn't grow up too fast.

"_Daddy_," she dragged out when he didn't respond quickly enough.

"Pumpkin, I know you're excited, but it's only six. We're not having lunch until twelve."

"But that's so long," she complained and started bouncing on her knees again.

"Oof!" Rick exhaled with a laugh, rolling onto his side so that Alexis spilled off of him and onto the bed next to him. "Since when did I become a trampoline, huh, you little monkey?"

Alexis giggled as she struggled to sit up. "I'm not a monkey. Monkey-Bunkey is a monkey," she said with all seriousness, holding up the previously unseen stuffed animal in front of his face.

He took the brown-furred monkey and studied it intently. "Hm…are you sure you're not related to Monkey-Bunkey? 'Cause you keep crawling all over the place like him."

"Daddy, stop being silly!"

"Silly? I'll show you silly!" he announced dramatically before descending on Alexis in a flurry of tickling fingers and raspberry-blowing lips.

Alexis giggled madly and squirmed to escape, but she didn't struggle hard enough to actually get away. Rick learned a long time ago that the term _tickle torture_ was a severe misnomer. She loved it.

"Do you surrender yet?" he questioned in his slightly accented, villainous voice.

"Never!" Alexis shrieked in reply, her little body contorting and shifting with glee. Her startling blue eyes crinkled with laughter.

Rick wrestled with her for a few more minutes before deciding that this was a little too much stimulation for six in the morning. In general, Alexis wasn't an overly excitable child, but like many children, she often had nightmares during naps if she played too hard during her hours awake.

His wiggling fingers smoothed into a calming hand pressed gently over her belly as Alexis lay sprawled on her back, heaving large gasps of air and still giggling intermittently. Stray locks stuck to her sweaty face, and he marveled once again at how the color her hair had mellowed from its vibrant carrot-orange when she was a baby to this serene copper tone.

It killed him to think about all the boys he was going to have to fend off with sticks and guns (and maybe a severed head or two) when she grew up.

He chuckled at himself. He wasn't usually this maudlin, but something in these past couple of weeks triggered a sudden onslaught of 'my little girl is growing up too quickly' thoughts.

He didn't regret divorcing Meredith—to be honest, Alexis was better off without _that_ particular influence—but he did regret his inability to provide a strong female guidance in her life. It wasn't that there was a complete dearth of feminine presence around Alexis. Despite her nomadic ways, his mother could be counted upon in times of need, and even his publisher Gina, who outwardly seemed to be all about the bottom line, had an unacknowledged soft spot for his daughter.

But it wasn't the same. His mother, Gina, and the handful of other women he worked with who weren't completely insane were more like a traveling troupe that darted in and out of the duo's lives, not necessarily with careless abandon, but certainly with syncopated irregularity.

He'd grown up without a dad, and he'd turned out mostly okay—if he didn't say so himself—and he knew that Alexis would be okay too. He just… He didn't want Alexis to just be _okay_. He wanted her to have the best _everything_, and that included the best childhood that he could provide.

Intellectually, he knew that just because he was a single parent didn't mean that he couldn't give Alexis a full and loving home, just the same as he knew that having a two-parent household didn't automatically equate a healthy family. He wouldn't go so far as to say that he wanted a mother for Alexis, but he wanted someone he could trust to have Alexis' best interests at heart, someone who could and would protect her, even if something should ever happen to him.

His thoughts inevitably wandered to Beckett. He wasn't about to pick out rings or anything drastic like that, but the detective intrigued him. She was good with Alexis, yes, and almost unbearably sexy, _hell yes_, but there was something else about her that appealed to the writer in him. There was an air of tragedy wrapped around her. It wasn't so thick that it was overwhelming; quite the opposite actually. It was a barely-there cloak that draped her in mystery.

And Richard Castle had always been a sucker for a good mystery.

…

At 11:53 a.m., Rick was sitting next to Alexis in a booth at Remy's Diner and belatedly panicking over the fact that he wasn't sure whether or not Beckett was going to show. Sure, she was the one who'd suggested lunch, and she was definitely not the type to back down on her word, but a lot had happened last night.

Maybe she needed time to regroup or something. Or to fill out the paperwork he'd prevented her from completing last night.

Or to heal, he thought with a grimace when he remembered the slick run of blood down her side.

He really should have gotten her number last night, but he'd so preoccupied with making sure that she got home safely that he hadn't really thought much beyond seeing her to a taxi.

But now that he was sitting down next to an Alexis squirming with excitement and with only a handful of minutes before Beckett was officially late, he could tell that he was starting to obsess a little because, okay, really, it's only 11:55, and even if she doesn't show up at twelve on the dot, it didn't mean that she wasn't coming at all.

The waitress came by to drop off a glass of water for him and a plastic kid's cup of orange juice for Alexis.

"You ready to order?"

Rick visibly startled at the question. The waitress, a kindly middle-aged woman whose nametag read Clara, lifted an amused eyebrow at him. "You doing alright there, sugar?"

He cleared his throat and let out an embarrassed chuckle. "Yes, great. Good. Uh, we're waiting for a friend, actually. Do you mind giving us a few minutes?"

"No problem." Clara smirked. "Must be _some_ friend."

Rick didn't know what to reply to that.

…

At five minutes to noon, Kate found herself hesitating just outside the doors to Remy's Diner.

She was being stupid. She knew she was, but she couldn't help it. It had _just_ now hit her that she was about to have lunch with Richard Castle and his daughter.

It really shouldn't be such a big deal, considering how any and all ice basically shattered last night when he came bumbling into the middle of her sting and annoying her until she went home to take care of her wound. (Yes, okay, she'll admit that that was kind of sweet.)

Yet, despite their (mis)adventure and the ease with which they'd slipped into teasing banter last night, the clarity brought on by the light of day made the fact that she was meeting up with her favorite author rather glaring. Glaringly crazy, glaringly ridiculous, glaringly fangirl-squeal-inducing…

Yeah. All of the above.

She shook her head, slightly disgusted with herself. She was _so_ not the type to fangirl all over celebrities. (Never mind the fact that yes, she subscribed to Castle's website, and yes, she'd once stood in line for over an hour to get a book signed by him. Both were facts that Castle didn't know and definitely would not _ever _know.)

She was a detective, for goodness sake, not some top-heavy bimbette looking to score her fifteen minutes of fame by associating with a best-selling author.

Man _up_, Beckett.

She glanced down at her watch, mildly surprised to see that only a few minutes had passed during her mini meltdown, then she squared her shoulders and pushed through the door before she had time to question herself again.

The familiar tinkling of the bell fixed atop the entrance calmed her nerves, and she found an easy smile spreading across her lips when she spotted Frankie behind the counter. Frankie and his wife Clara owned and operated Remy's pretty much on their own. Kate was a regular customer, especially during their odd hours, and they'd become friends of sorts.

"Hey, Frankie," she called out to the heavy-set man whose jaw was lined with graying stubble.

"Detective! Good to see you're actually eating food for lunch. For once," replied the cook-cum-owner.

"You shouldn't be complaining about my eating habits. I give you way too much business as it is."

"Yeah yeah yeah. What'll you be having today?"

"Oh, I'm actually meeting up with some friends. I'll order in a bit."

Frankie nodded and turned his attention back to the patties grilling over the stove.

Kate glanced around the diner and immediately caught sight of Castle and Alexis sitting in a corner booth. Clara stood next to their table with a notepad in one hand and the other resting on her full hips. She had that look on her face that spelled all kinds of trouble—Kate easily recognized it having been on the receiving end of that far too often—so the detective made her way over before Clara embarrassed Castle too much. Clara was hilariously down-to-earth, and while it was a trait that Kate adored, Clara's blunt attitude tended to create awkward situations more often than not.

"Hey guys," Kate greeted, noting that Castle already looked a little flustered.

Clara shot Castle one of her patented I-see-what's-going-on looks, and Kate almost laughed out loud at the confused expression on his face. Poor guy. Actually, she was a little surprised that Castle hadn't already been a victim of Clara's matchmaking machinations if he came here often enough for Alexis to know that the shakes were the best around.

The waitress turned at her voice, but before she could say anything, Alexis had somehow managed to crawl over Castle's lap and launched herself at Kate's legs with a happy squeal. "Kate!"

Kate staggered back a step, surprised by the force of the four-year-old in motion, and then laughed as she bent to pick up the girl. Scary how quickly the action had become second nature. "Whoa, hey kiddo. It's good to see you too."

"Detective! I didn't realize that you were _friends_." Clara purposefully emphasized the last word, and Castle choked on his water.

Oookay. Kate definitely missed something.

She didn't get a chance to comment on it though as Clara, with a wicked twinkle in her eye that Kate didn't bother to discourage (it'd be a waste of effort), told them, "I'll come back in a few to get your orders."

"Okay. Thanks, Clara," responded Kate. Her lips flicked up in a small smile of greeting at Castle as she tried to set Alexis down next to him in the booth. The girl refused to let go, so Kate slid as best as she could into the seat across from him all the while holding an armful of four-year-old.

"Detective, good to see you," Castle greeted when Kate finally situated herself and Alexis. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

She frowned a little, looking up from where she was removing her leather gloves. "Why? I was the one who suggested it."

He shrugged, and she caught a glimpse of the surprising insecurity she'd seen last night when he'd been worried about her safety. It didn't exactly jive with the obnoxiously self-assured playboy that the gossip columns painted him as, but then again, she wouldn't have expected the man on Page Six of the _New York Ledger _to be sitting in a small diner with his daughter for lunch.

She of all people should know that appearances did not reality make.

Castle didn't give an answer and she didn't exactly want to press him for one, so she went with the flow when Alexis provided the perfect subject change.

"Look, Kate, look what I drawed." Alexis leaned over the table to drag the kid's menu that doubled as a coloring sheet over to their side.

"I would love to see what you drew," Kate subtly corrected, then flushed a little when she realized that she was in no position to be policing Castle's daughter's use of grammar. But when she glanced at Castle, there was a small, soft smile on his lips.

"I drew a picture for you," Alexis repeated, picking up the correction with that natural ease kids were gifted with.

Kate helped her turn the paper menu so that it was right side up. Much of the sheet was covered in colorful scribbles and indecipherable blobs, but there was one section partitioned off where it was clearly meant to be a specific drawing.

In fact, now that Kate took a closer look, the crayon-created illustration was actually pretty well-done for a four-year-old. A carefully drawn stick figure with long brown hair sat atop a large oval with four sticks protruding from the bottom half. Two lines—one with spikes running along the top—connected the large oval to a smaller, elongated one, which had a face drawn in.

Huh, interesting. The stick figure's shield looked suspiciously like her detective badge, and—wait, was that a crown?

"A princess on a horse?" Kate murmured her best guess.

Alexis beamed at her, as if proud of Kate for getting it on the first try. "Yup. It's s'posed to be you, Kate. See, you save me like a knight, and you so pretty like a princess!"

Oh gosh, that might be the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for her.

It was absolutely ridiculous, but a sudden wellspring of tears surged up behind Kate's eyelids, and it was all she could do to keep them from falling. She hadn't cried in years, and now this little girl with her earnest little face and her too-sweet words was going to make Kate bawl like a baby.

Alexis' face fell when she saw the watery glint to Kate's eyes. "Why're you sad? You don't like it?"

Kate tightened her grip around the girl's waist. "Oh no, I love it Alexis."

"Then why do you cry?"

Kate internally laughed. Great question. Now if only she could come up with something better than _I don't know._

Gathering her wits about her, she carefully replied, "You know, people don't just cry when they're sad. Sometimes they cry when they're very happy too. Your picture made me very happy."

"Oh." Alexis furrowed her brows as she tried to decide whether or not she trusted this logic. Eventually she must have decided to take Kate at her word because she let out a big sigh. "Big people are so complicated."

Kate let out a startled laugh as her gaze shot up to find Castle. "She has quite the vocabulary."

Castle grinned, fatherly pride written all over his face. "What can I say? I'm a writer. Her first word was denouement."

Kate shook her head with a chuckle, even as she felt herself relax. There was something about the Castles that just made her want to drop her guard.

A part of her cautioned that as a problem in and of itself.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: First of all, can I just give a great big shout-out for everyone who has taken the time to review this story? We've broken triple digits, ladies and gentlemen, so thank you so much for helping me get to that personal milestone. :)_

_In other news, I just started a tumblr account, so come talk to me! My username is __**scripting-life **(with a hyphen because someone already used scripting life).__  
_

* * *

Chapter Eight

* * *

"So, why did you become a cop?"

The question came seemingly out of the blue as Beckett and Castle watched Alexis clamber all over the playground structure.

It'd been two days since their lunch together, and though Kate didn't mean to meet up with the Castles again, never mind so soon after their previous encounter, somehow she found herself on her day off accompanying them on their daily trip to the park.

She blamed it on Alexis' irresistible puppy dog look, though admittedly, Castle's had been a pretty good runner-up.

Whatever the reason, she was here now, and she'd be lying if she said that she didn't enjoy spending time with them. Castle, for all his playboy panache, was really just a big kid, and when he wasn't being an idiot (which she was beginning to think he played up to for laughs and maybe even as a diversionary tactic), he was actually good company. At the very least he made her feel unburdened for those short hours they were together. She hadn't felt so light in a long time.

However, there was one big problem with him: his nigh insatiable curiosity.

"Excuse me?" she asked, already preparing herself for whatever off-the-wall theory he might throw out.

"It's just… Under normal circumstances, you don't seem like you'd be the cop type."

"Oh?" she questioned, one brow rising to impressive heights. "What _type_ do I seem?"

"Honestly? I would've pegged you for a lawyer."

She let out a little puff of laugh at that. He actually wasn't too far off. She'd been pre-law at Stanford.

She wasn't about to let him know that he'd gotten so close with his speculation, however. It was a game of sorts that they played. He would try to figure out things about her, which she subsequently tried to make as difficult as possible by neither really confirming nor denying his conjectures. Still, she had to admit that he was getting pretty good at reading her.

Instead, she asked, "What makes you say that?"

He shrugged. "Most smart, beautiful woman with your background become lawyers, not cops."

"My background?" she scoffed. "What do _you_ know about my background?"

He got that particular twinkle in his eyes that she already recognized from whenever he was spinning some fantastical account. It was kind of amazing how his mind worked, all plot points and origin stories and unpredictable twists.

She had to admit that she got a certain thrill from watching him tell a story, the way his whole demeanor changed until all his attention focused on the words coming out his mouth and the images he evoked in her mind. It was an even greater thrill to know that that attention was currently fixed on her.

"Well, no trace of the boroughs when you talk, so that means Manhattan. That means money. You went to college. Probably a pretty good one. You had options."

She nodded, giving him a point, and impressed despite herself by his ability to extrapolate and exposit based solely on her speech and appearance.

"Yeah, you had lots of options. Better options. More socially acceptable options. And you still chose this."

Then his gaze sharpened on her, and abruptly she didn't think this was such a good idea anymore. In fact, this was a terrible idea. He could read her too easily, see too much, and with his crisp, blue eyes watching her so closely, she felt exposed. Vulnerable. Like his next words could rip open scabs and draw blood.

His voice dropped to a murmur, and he was no longer telling a story. He was reading her history in the tension in her muscles and the sudden, blank mask she'd had to pull up. He was drowning her with his words, even as his books had once been the lifeline to which she'd clutched with ferocious desperation.

She wanted him to shut up, to stop talking _now_, but she couldn't bring herself out of her frozen state, and Castle was too immersed in his story to notice.

"That tells me something happened. Not to you; you're wounded, but you're not that wounded. It was someone you cared about. It was someone you loved. And you probably could have lived with that, but the person responsible was never caught. And _that,_ Detective Beckett, is why you're a cop."

…

He'd screwed up.

Beckett held herself still, too still, and Rick was suddenly struck with the realization that he'd pried open a wound he wasn't supposed to touch. The problem was he didn't know how to close it back up.

He'd instinctively known that he'd struck gold when he started detailing his vision of Beckett's background and saw the untimely death of a loved one whose murder was never solved. That was the origin of the tragic mien that blanketed her, the mystery that made up such a large part of her initial allure. Here was the catalyst that had shifted her from the path of young Manhattanite to police detective.

A part of him crowed in success that he'd found the past that had created the present.

But the other part of him—the one more aware of his surroundings than the consummate storyteller who gets sucked into the tale and forgets the people—that part begged him to stop talking, to just _stop_ before he ruined the tentative friendship between them. But the siren's call of her story was too much for him to resist. It lured him into recklessness, the minstrel blinded to his muse's silent pain, until the words were out and the damage done.

He swallowed thickly, and even the harsh bite of winter winds couldn't stop his hands from clamming up with nervous sweat. "Beckett…"

"Cute trick." She gave him a tight smile that came off more like a grimace. Her eyes sucked him in, dark, mesmerizing pools that appeared superficially calm, but masked roiling depths of pain far below the surface. "But don't think you know me."

"I—"

With that forced smile stiffly painted on her lips, she walked off toward Alexis before he could even think about how to finish his thought.

Shit. Now how was he supposed to fix this?

…

Intellectually, Kate knew that it wasn't really Castle's fault that he'd read her so accurately and managed to pin the tail on the most painful experience of her life. If anything, it was her own mistake for encouraging this little game they played.

Still, _knowing_ didn't mean that she could stop the harsh emotions from trampling all over her and leaving her battered and weary.

Sometimes she got so tired of carrying the weight of her mother's murder around her neck that she just wished she could forget it all, but the guilt of even thinking such a thing invariably ate her up from the inside out.

She knew it wasn't altogether healthy, the way she hung onto her mother's case, but what else could she do? The person who'd killed her mother, the one who'd stabbed her dozens of times and left her bleeding out in an alley for no discernible reason—that person was still free and roaming the streets. How could Kate possibly live with herself knowing that and not doing everything in her ability to take him down?

It was a timely reminder however.

People like her simply did not hang out with people like the Castles.

It wasn't because of his semi-celebrity status or the disparity in their socio-economic positions. It wasn't even because she thought she was too dark to spend time with his four-year-old. He was Richard Castle after all, and some of the insights he'd written into his villains' minds were twisted enough to send chills down _her_ spine.

In fact, the issue wasn't at the Castles' end at all.

It was just that she was too...driven. She had a tendency to leave people by the wayside in lieu of chasing the objective that as yet continued to elude her.

And the last thing she wanted to do was hurt this sweet little girl who was currently chattering all about the lava monster that would catch her if she touched the tanbark.

Maybe it was time to remember that she'd given up on the idea of having a family life for a reason. Not that she thought of this day with Castle and Alexis as a family outing, but whatever the case, she needed to keep in mind that this pleasant leisure wouldn't last forever.

She was not made for normal and she couldn't let herself get caught up in the illusion of safety.

She'd forgotten how to be friends with normal people. And by normal, she meant people who weren't entrenched in the world of crime and punishment. Her best friend was a medical examiner for goodness sake. And sure, Kate still kept up with a handful of high school and college friends—she'd even been a bridesmaid for a couple of them—but there was…a divide there now.

Part of it was that she'd seen human condition at some of its worst, and she didn't ever want to bring that stain into the friendships she'd formed while she'd still worn rose-shaded lenses. But by compartmentalizing her life in such a way, she never felt completely like herself when amongst her non-cop friends. It was as if she were constantly holding a huge piece of herself back—which, when she thought about it, she really was.

So while it'd been fun and relaxing hanging out with Alexis (and yes, Castle too), Kate knew that it'd be a bad idea to continue spending this much time with them.

"Kate! Daddy said we can get ice cream! Let's get ice cream!" Alexis tugged on the end of her sleeve and pulled Kate from her deep reverie.

Kate smiled at Alexis while simultaneously shooting Castle a look. _Ice cream in the middle of December? Really?_

Castle grinned at her before replying, "It's warm indoors."

Kate rolled her eyes, but when Alexis flashed her that patented puppy face (that girl could bring nations to their knees with that look), Kate couldn't refuse.

"Let's go then."

Alexis cheered, giving Kate a big hug around her knees before skipping off to tug at Castle's hand. The image of his broad-shouldered frame leaning down ever so slightly to accommodate Alexis' shorter limbs as he listened intently to her babbling brought a soft smile to Kate's face.

Kate had her phone out and capturing the moment before she even realized what she was doing. She looked from the heart-warming image on her phone to the real thing, and the part of her that had always wanted a family clenched in response.

Alexis paused, jerking Castle to a stop and he shot her a questioning look. Kate shook her head, telling him it was nothing, and she speed-walked the short distance to catch up to them. Alexis grabbed Kate's hand so that the girl was standing between the two adults, her hands clutching tightly to both of them.

One more day of pretending she could do the relaxed and normal thing, and then she'll have to give each other some distance before she hurt either one of them in the backlash of her latent obsession.

…

When Rick and Alexis returned to the loft later that day for Alexis to take a short nap, Rick reflected on the day.

There had been so many ups and downs—from the initial surprise of Beckett actually coming out to the park with them to his insensitive cold read of her past—that it made it difficult to judge where they stood.

For his part, Rick found himself more intrigued than ever by the person of Kate Beckett now that he'd gotten a taste of the mystery about her. But it wasn't just whatever happened in her past that interested him. He wanted to know _her _more—her likes and her dislikes, her interests and opinions, everything.

He had a feeling, however, that that was going to be more difficult after today.

The rest of their play date (Rick cringed internally; that sounded dirtier than it was, but it really_ was_ a play date—for Alexis anyway) had passed without incident. Beckett seemed to have brushed off his unintentional faux pas with neither of them appearing worse for wear, but he was uncomfortably aware that she'd erected a parapet of wariness to the wall he wanted to get past.

The problem was that Alexis was too convenient of a distraction—an issue he never thought he'd encounter. Most women were annoyed when Alexis took his attention away from them, but Beckett was the opposite. He wouldn't say that Beckett _used_ his daughter as a shield because the detective's interest in Alexis was genuine, but it also couldn't be denied that Beckett was more than happy to have Alexis present to deflect his questions.

It made getting past that thick, thorny brush she enclosed herself within quite the harrowing task.

He also got the impression when they were getting ice cream that Beckett was gearing herself up to put space between them. And _that_ he wasn't about to allow.

What he needed to do, he realized, was to create opportunities where he could be alone with her, or if not completely alone, then in her element. As insightful as these outings with his daughter have been, he could tell that Beckett wasn't completely comfortable in these quasi-domestic encounters.

He needed to put her at ease.

And he knew just the thing to do.

* * *

_A/N: Hehehe… Immovable object? Meet unstoppable force._

_Anyhow, I don't usually like to rip dialogue from the show word-for-word, and I know the cold read scene from the pilot is used in fanfiction ad nauseum. I ended up using it this time because it fit in really well with the larger plot elements that I'm developing, but I'd still like to apologize for being unoriginal. haha._

_Okay, that's all. Thanks for reading!_


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

* * *

"Katherine Beckett, I'mma smack you, girl."

Oh boy. This was going to be one of those times that Kate wished she'd been more careful about answering the phone without looking at the caller ID, wasn't it?

She set down the box of leftovers she'd been about to heat up for dinner and went over to sprawl on her couch instead. She knew from experience that trying to have a discussion that begins with Lanie saying the words "smack" and "you" was bound to be a daunting task.

At least Lanie had graciously chosen to undertake this particular interrogation over the phone. Kate could always just hang up on her.

As tentatively as she would if she were navigating her way through a minefield, Kate questioned, "What did I do this time, Lanie?"

The ME huffed loudly. "Oh, don't even try to pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about! You've been hanging out with Rick Castle—who happens to be your favorite author—and his daughter all week, and you don't even tell me? What is up with that?"

Ah. Kate had no idea how Lanie seemed to know everything, but her chain of information was impressive enough to rival the CIA's.

"Okay, first of all, I've been hanging out with Alexis, not Castle. He just happens to be there because, well, he's her dad. Second, I haven't been hanging out with them _all week_. It was twice."

_In one week_, added her mental voice.

_Shuuuut uuuup, me_.

"Splitting hairs, Beckett. Just admit that you like spending time with the guy."

"It's not like that, Lanie."

"Well, why the hell _isn't _it, then? I mean really. If Richard Castle is as good with his kid as Charlie says he is, then he can't be as bad as the gossips paint him as, right? What're you hesitating about?"

"Wait, back up. Charlie? As in the front desk officer at the 12th? How do you know Charlie?"

"Pssh, please." Kate could practically see the black woman's roll of her eyes over the line. "I'm an ME. I know the front desk officers at all the precincts."

Huh. Well, there's one source of information. It made sense since Lanie had to contact homicide detectives from all precincts. It was a little frightening, however, to think that Lanie had _all _those officers under her thumb. It made Kate think that Lanie went into the wrong profession. Just imagine if Lanie were Langley...

"Don't try to change the subject," Lanie pressed. "Why the hell are sitting at home on a Saturday night—and yes, I know you're at home, probably reading one of _his _books—when you could be gettin' it on with Writer-Boy?" Lanie paused, then added, "Of course, if he's not as hot as his pictures..."

"Oh no, the real thing's better," her mouth responded before her brain could filter it. Ah shit. Well, that wasn't telling _at all_.

Lanie's pointed silence said everything.

"Just because I have eyes…" Kate tried to salvage.

"Uh huh. Self-denial is really not healthy. You know that right?"

At least _this _Kate had the perfect response for. "So says the kettle. Or do you want to be the pot?"

"Funny. Very funny."

"Seriously, Lanie. You know I was partnered with Esposito during my last undercover op. He looks like he's doing well. You guys still not on a talking basis?"

"He was the one who said we should cool things off for a while."

"Only after _you _told him you didn't think you weren't ready for a serious relationship."

Lanie didn't respond for a while, and Kate just wanted to sigh. Or smack some sense into the ME.

Although Kate didn't know Esposito very well, she was aware of enough of the situation to know that Lanie had been the one with cold feet. For all her regular sass, the medical examiner was alarmingly reticent about entering into committed relationships, even with genuinely good guys like the Hispanic detective.

Then again, who was _she _to judge other people about their willingness—or lack thereof—to commit to a relationship?

Before Will, Kate had thought that she would only be able to be with men who were also in law enforcement. When she'd met Will during a kidnapping case, Kate had thought that she'd finally met The One. They bonded in shared grief over the eventually tragic ending of that case, and for a while, they'd been good together. Really good. So good that Kate had seriously contemplated moving in with him even though they'd only been dating for six months.

Of course, everything turned on its head when he told her about The Move. He'd been offered a huge career advancement opportunity with the FBI field office in Boston, and he'd snatched it up almost immediately. She couldn't blame him for that, not when she knew how much the job meant to him.

What really stupefied her, however, was the fact that he'd taken it for granted that she would go with him. He'd been seriously shocked when she told him no.

That he thought she would leave everything—even her mother's case—to make that move with him made her realize that he didn't really know her at all. And the truth was that she didn't really know him either. She loved him, yes, but she couldn't help wondering whether what she'd truly loved was the idea of a man like Will Sorenson and not the man himself.

Either way, they'd parted with regrets on both sides. But not with enough regret to change their minds about their respective, chosen paths.

Still, the whole fiasco had shattered the illusion that only a fellow cop (or FBI agent) could be her lifelong partner.

Now, she wondered if she was destined for serial monogamy. Of course, the way things were looking right now, she seemed destined for the spinster life. She hadn't dated anyone—seriously or otherwise—in over six months, not ever since she broke it off with Will. She'd been telling the truth when she told Lanie several days ago that she was over him, but neither was Kate inclined to complicate her life with a man.

And at this stage of her life, when she was so close to transferring to Homicide and finally getting one step closer to solving her mother's murder, she couldn't afford to be distracted.

She couldn't be thinking about guys and dating and families, especially not families with Richard Castle.

_Whoa. Get out of my head, Freud_.

Slip of thought or not, Castle simply wouldn't fit in her life. Of course, it wasn't as if he'd ever indicated that he was interested in her romantically. Sexually, sure, but he'd never shown any signs that he wanted a relationship deeper than that.

And why was she thinking about this anyway? She'd already decided to limit the time she hung out with the Castles—him in particular. She wasn't interested in a relationship with him. She wasn't.

"Stop trying to distract me from the real issue at hand here," Lanie eventually said, though with a lot less impertinence than before. "We're talking about you and Rick Castle, not me and Javier."

"There is no 'me and Rick Castle.' And there never will be."

"But _why_? What's wrong with having a little fun every now and then?"

"Disregarding the fact that the last thing I need in my life right now is a fling, have you thought about the fact that I met his daughter before I met him? I like Alexis. I really do. And I want to be able to visit her on occasion without things being _weird _between me and her dad."

"Okay, but aren't things already weird? From what Charlie said, you and Castle were generating so much electricity between the two of you that he thought you might cause a power outage. With that much sexual tension, isn't it better to get it out of your system so that you can actually relax around him?"

"First of all, I can't believe that Charlie said that. Second, I'm not about to go _relaxing tension _with every guy I'm attracted to."

"Hah! So you _are _attracted to him."

Kate didn't bother to suppress her growl of irritation. "I never said I wasn't," she said thinly. "But I also know that I'm more likely to hurt him and Alexis if I get into _anything _with him that isn't platonic. You know me, Lanie. I suck at relationships. I just want them to be those friends that you meet up with on occasion to chill out with. Why complicate that with sex?"

"I still don't see why you can't have both."

"Lanie, seriously. It's me we're talking about here. Of all the guys I've ever dated in my life, I'm still friends with none of them."

Kate and Lanie sighed simultaneously. Apparently they were both failures in the relationship department.

…

"Hey Beckett, you got a minute? We need some extra hands for the Oz case."

Kate looked up from case she was working on. Vice had been circling a group of dealers operating out of Central Park, and they'd just caught one of the low-level lackeys who just happened to be connected to the murder of a prestigious prep school kid whose family had fallen into disrepute. On the surface, it looked like a simple open and shut case; a witness had seen the dealer, Kent Scoville, running away from the park right after she heard gunshots, and the kid used to peddle for the Scoville, so the motive was probably money.

But something about the case didn't add up. As bad as Scoville's criminal record was—a two-time loser facing his third felony conviction—she just didn't see him as the murderer when she looked at this case.

She put it aside for now as she gave Detective Evans her attention. "The Oz case?" she repeated with a frown. "I thought OC was taking care of the fallout for that."

The grizzled detective nodded. "They are, but they need some help on the local level. Oz hasn't given up much; whoever he works for has him pissing his pants in fear. Until we get some better leverage on him, OC has to go another route. Oz did mention a possible gang connection, and OC thinks they can find an _in_ to the drug cartel through a blade-man for the Latin Kings."

"The Latin Kings? They've been dealing for years, but it's always been a fairly unsophisticated, local product. What makes OC think they made a jump to the big leagues?"

Evans shrugged. "I don't know, but you got dibs on the case since you were part of the op that took in Oz. You want in or not?"

Her eyes brightened with the thrill of the chase, but she glanced down at the case she was already working. Technically, the murder wasn't hers, but she couldn't help but be intrigued by the homicide aspect.

Evans followed her gaze.

"You'll have time to work other cases on the side," he reassured her. "You're operating more as a liaison and consultant than anything."

She nodded in response. "Okay. I'm in."

"Good. I'll let them know. You might need to take a trip down to the 54th to meet up with Detective Esposito and the rest of the guys on the task force."

"Got it. Thanks, Evans."

"No problem kid. We gotta run you ragged before you transfer out, after all."

She laughed. "Of course."

Their conversation was interrupted when Captain Roy Montgomery, head of the 12th Precinct, walked up to them.

From what she knew of him and the few interactions she'd had with him in the past, Montgomery was exactly the kind of captain one would want running the ship. He was smart, insightful, with decades of on-the-street experience which allowed him to commiserate with his underlings, unlike many of the other captains who'd taken the administrative route to captaincy. He was firm and unyielding when it came to upholding the law, but he understood that rules in and of themselves were not the end-all. He had enough respect for his detectives to expect them to know the difference. On top of it all, he was known for his sly sense of humor.

Be that as it may, it was a rare occurrence to see him up here in Vice. He'd spent his detective years investigating homicides, so he usually chose one of their cases to follow whenever he had an urge to relive the good ole days. His office was located on the same floor as Homicide, so that probably factored in as well.

"Captain," greeted both detectives.

Montgomery nodded in acknowledgement. "How are things going down here, Evans?"

"Eh, not bad. OC at the 54th wants Beckett's help on some things."

Montgomery shook his head wryly. "Always trying to steal my people, the 54th."

They all shared a laugh and then Montgomery turned to Kate.

"Beckett, can I have a word?"

"Of course, sir." Her brows furrowed a little in confusion. She'd spoken with Captain Montgomery before in the past—including one time when he'd found her in the records room poring over the case files for her mother's murder back when she was still a uniform—but since she was under Evans' charge, she rarely reported directly to him.

"Let's move to my office."

Okay, this was strange. When did the captain _ever _come to down to Vice _in person _to tell a detective to meet in his office? He could have just as easily called for her on extension.

"Yes, sir."

When they entered the elevator together, Montgomery cleared his throat, and she was surprised to see that he was…amused?

"It seems that you have a fan," he stated rather abruptly.

"What?"

"Rick Castle."

This time her "What?" was low and more a demand than a question.

"Apparently he wants the focus of his next book to be on the NYPD instead of the CIA. But he needs to do research."

"What?" This was a squeak as a pit of unease began to form in her stomach.

Montgomery continued nonchalantly. "He requested to shadow a detective for a couple of weeks to get a better understanding of the correct procedures and all that."

"What?" She was beginning to feel like a broken record, so she switched it up by saying, "No. Oh, no. Just—no."

"Oh yes. Richard Castle has requested to shadow _you_."

"You can't possibly think this is a good idea," she said incredulously. Then she hurriedly added, "Sir."

Montgomery shrugged, and this time Kate definitely detected humor in the gentle lines of his face. "The mayor thinks it's a good idea. Good publicity and all that. And you know how it works. If the mayor's happy, then the commissioner is happy. And if the commissioner's happy, _I'm_ happy."

Kate's mouth did an excellent impression of a fish, and it was only when the cheerful _ding _of the elevator sounded as it arrived on the fourth floor where Homicide was located that she snapped out of it.

Her eyes narrowed into a vicious glare when the elevator doors opened to reveal Richard Castle jauntily waving at her from the bullpen.

She was going to kill him.


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: Just a__s a general heads-up, although I recycle a LOT of the situations, names, details of cases from the canon, I will generally twist the context and the outcome so that it's not a carbon copy. This chapter especially has a crazy mix of canon cases/background, but please keep an open mind. It'll seem a bit weird how I do it, but trust that I know exactly where I'm heading with this. (Which, sadly, isn't something I can often say...)_

_**Random Fun Fact: **This is such an incredible honor, but my fic **A Discourse on Ducks **has been nominated for the Castle Fan Awards' Best Non-Romance/General fic! Head on over to the Castle Fan Awards site __to see the list of amazing fics that have been nominated for all categories. If you think that my fic has what it takes to win, please vote for it under category A1. Voting ends July 2, I think. Thanks!_

* * *

Chapter Ten

* * *

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" Beckett demanded the first chance she got to pull Castle away into a little privacy. And by privacy, that really meant the station's back stairwell.

Under other circumstances? Pretty damn salacious.

Unfortunately for Castle, right now was most definitely _not_ other circumstances, and he'd be lucky to escape with all his parts intact.

Castle had been doing his best to avoid giving her the opportunity to corner him alone (which was made easier by the hour and a half of waivers he'd had to sign in case he ever got injured or killed while shadowing her), mostly because it was entertaining watching her so livid and not be able to do a thing about it.

Was it wrong for him to think that she was hot as hell when she was irritated—okay, not just irritated, but practically blowing steam from her ears—at him?

Maybe, but he couldn't bring himself to regret it.

This whole insinuating himself into her workplace was a stroke of brilliance, if he didn't say so himself. Well, either that or it was the biggest dumbass move he'd ever made because he was going to die an early death at the hands of one seriously pissed off detective.

_Damn, but what a way it would be to go_, wistfully sighed the admittedly twisted voice in his head.

He schooled his expression into one void of guile, though he knew she wasn't buying it.

"Research," he responded with an extra, innocent bat of his eyelashes.

Yeah, she _definitely_ wasn't buying it.

She scoffed, an eminently inelegant noise coming out of that enticing mouth. "You've got to be kidding me. You've written what, twenty bestsellers before this. What _research_ do you still need to do?"

"Twenty-one, actually, and that just goes to show how little you know, my dear detective. Research for writing is a never-ending process because procedures change and technology improves. Everything is constantly being updated. Besides, my current line of Derrick Storm books revolve around the CIA, and I've also done books in the past about the FBI, but I've never done one on the NYPD. How crazy is that?" Then he winked at her. "Then again, who am I talking to? You already knew all that didn't you?"

He grinned even wider when he saw that she was about blow a gasket. She tugged her lower lip between her teeth and chewed on it so relentlessly that his heart ached for the poor, abused flesh. He'd be happy to take that lip and soothe it with his tongue, but he had a feeling that she wouldn't take too kindly to that right this moment.

The daggers she threw at him through those amazing hazel eyes were a pretty good clue.

Still, he wasn't known for being basically unable to shame for nothing, and he let the cold fire of her glare glance right off his back.

"What about Alexis? You can't just leave her alone all the time."

Ooh, good call, digging out his daughter as ammunition. Fortunately, that solution had already been solved before he'd even met Beckett. "She's been really into art lately, so I enrolled her into an art class for preschoolers. She spends half a day there twice a week, so those would be the days I get to shadow you."

He could see Beckett perk up at the news that he was in reality only going to be around for maybe eight hours a week. He'd be hurt that she was so excited to spend less time with him if it didn't also mean that she'd be more receptive to his shadowing her on a part-time basis.

It was nice to see his college psychology courses coming in hand. He wondered what she'd say if she ever found out how he played her.

Yeah, he's definitely not stupid enough to dig his own grave by telling her. Ever.

"You're not gonna go away no matter what I say, are you?" she finally said, more resigned statement than actual question.

He cheerfully replied, "Nope."

He could see the changes in her when she finally realized that she couldn't get rid of him. Not in any way that was legal and didn't involve murdering him and hiding his body, that is.

"How long?" she finally sighed.

He really shouldn't bait her anymore. He really, really shouldn't, but he couldn't help it when loftily said, "I don't know. There's no telling how long I'll need before inspiration strikes."

She narrowed her eyes at him, a clear gesture screaming _I see what you're doing_. "Yeah well, make sure it doesn't take you too long, or else to inspiration might _strike_ you sooner than you think."

He tamped down the glee and pasted on an expression of innocence. He knew exactly what she'd meant, but he couldn't help twisting it around. "Why Detective Beckett, if you wanted to be my inspiration, all you had to do was ask."

The vein on her forehead twitched, and he found himself mesmerized by it. He thought only cartoon characters did that when they were pissed.

"You seem to forget that I carry a gun."

"Never." He let his eyes darken with the latent lust he constantly felt around her, and he leered. "I wouldn't mind if you wanted to use your cuffs on me either."

She gaped at him in stunned disbelief before recovering and pinning him with a glare that probably could poke holes in him if she held it long enough. Then she spun on her heels and left him grinning like an idiot.

Castle one. Beckett zero.

...

The universe was conspiring against her. That was the only explanation.

The front desk officer at the 54th, a round-set older man named Greg, waved at her as they passed, and then frowned when he spotted Castle.

"Hey, isn't that—"

"Yes," Kate cut him off. "That's Rick Castle. He'll be _shadowing_," she spit out the word like it tasted bad on her lips, "me on my cases for a while."

Hopefully a very _short_ while, she thought, but somehow she doubted it. Castle was up to something, and she was almost afraid to find out what.

She mentally groaned when they were on the elevator. There was also the fact that Greg was now going to tell (report to) Lanie all about this, and it'll be the other day's conversation all over again.

Stupid Richard Castle. It was entirely his fault, she decided, not unjustified.

"So, what are we doing at the 54th Precinct anyway?" Castle eventually asked, braving the wolves.

She resolutely kept her eyes fixed on the changing digits of the elevator. Was it just her, or was it moving extra slowly today?

"_I'm _here to do my job. _You're_ apparently here to annoy me."

"Hey, I resent that. I can be useful."

She raised a skeptical brow at him. "I somehow doubt that."

He must have taken that as a challenge because he began to argue his point. "I'll have you know that I'm pretty well-versed in psychopathic methodologies. Occupational hazard and all that."

"Yeah, well, you're _my _occupational hazard," she mumbled under her breath as she walked out of the now-open elevator doors.

She didn't have to see him to know that his lips were split in a huge-ass grin as he dogged her steps.

Jeez, this was such a bad, bad idea. He was going to drive her insane. That, or she might kill him.

"Seriously though, why are we here?"

Kate debated not telling him, just out of spite, but then she realized how counter-productive that would be since he'd only keep bothering her until he wormed it out of her. By not responding, _she_ was more likely to develop an ulcer than he was. She relented. "Following up on the Oz case, okay? Now just - try to not talk. I'm working on a task force for this one, so it's not going to be how it's like back at the 12th."

Castle opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a familiar voice.

"Hey-ey, lookit who we have here. I thought Writer Boy would've had enough after the last one."

Beckett and Castle looked up in tandem to see Esposito strolling towards them with a huge grin on his face.

"If only…" she muttered.

Castle sent her an exaggeratedly hurt look. Then he turned to Esposito to say with all seriousness, "Get it right, Detective Esposito. It's Writer _Man._"

Then just like that, Beckett had to press her lips together tightly to hold back a smile.

That shouldn't have been funny. There was nothing funny about it. There really wasn't.

But just the _way _he'd said it—all little boy whining and disingenuously wide eyes—was so freaking adorable, it should be illegal. Seriously, men who already looked as dreamy as Richard Castle should not get to have expressions like _that_ under his vast array of charm.

Just not freakin' fair.

She sighed. "Esposito, Mr. Castle will be shadowing me," she couldn't help but scowl over the words, "for research. Captain Montgomery of the 12th has approved it. Apparently, as have the commissioner and the mayor."

"Huh. Using your connections for personal gain, Castle?" goaded Esposito.

"That would be wrong and immoral. I can't believe you'd even suggest such a thing," said Castle with great theatrical indignation.

"Mmhm," she nodded with fake geniality. "Because I'm sure your ties to the mayor had absolutely nothing to do with how you managed to slip all your previous charges: disorderly conduct, resisting arrest…stealing a _police horse_…"

"Seriously, bro? You stole a police horse once?" A pause, and then Esposito winked conspiratorially at Castle. "I've always wanted to do that."

Beckett mentally threw up her hands. _Men_.

Then she glanced between the two of them and took in their exuberance over a criminal act.

_Boys_, she amended.

"If you're done bonding over the general stupidity and recklessness of the male race, can we get on with the case?"

Castle curled his fingers into a claw and mimed a hissing cat behind her back. She ignored him.

She wondered if there was any way she could make his murder look like a justified offense...

…

It turned out that the group Beckett was going to work with for their leg of the investigation included both Esposito and Ryan, and overseeing their particular squad was Sergeant Clay Davidson. Davidson was a grizzled veteran who'd had a good number of years on the job and had seen just about everything there was. Which was an extremely good thing because he'd accepted Castle's presence without even a bat of his eyes.

Or maybe it wasn't such a good thing. Beckett would've welcomed the sergeant's displeasure if it meant that it would get Castle off her back.

Alas, not such luck.

As one of the detectives who'd been part of the original OC task force tailing this drug ring, Esposito was the one who brought Beckett and Castle up to speed.

"Detective Evans probably already told you, but Oz didn't roll. He's a helluva lot more scared of whoever's pulling his strings than of us. But, by tracing his financials and recent whereabouts, we think that he's being partially supplied by Mario Mendoza, aka Trucho. Now, this Trucho is one sick badass. He's a blade man for the Latin Kings and has taken off more than one finger in his illustrious career. Definitely not afraid of getting his hands dirty."

Ryan jumped in here. "He's been spotted lurking around Chinatown a lot lately, so we're looking to tighten the noose there."

Beckett frowned. "Why would Trucho be in Chinatown? That's a ways out of Latin King territory isn't it?"

"Eh, it would be, but for this. John Allen. Interesting story with this fella. White male, mid-thirties, no criminal record. Found hanging in a tree after someone tossed him off the roof. Clear homicide, so not our problem, right? Not quite. When the body's on its way to the morgue, a couple of guys in ski masks stop the coroner's van and commandeer the body. At _gunpoint_."

"That's so awesome!" interjected Castle, his excitement boiling over. When everyone speared him with a round of deadpan looks, he quickly added, "In a terrible, not cool way."

Beckett discretely massaged her temple while Davidson, cool gray eyes not missing a beat, picked up the briefing from Ryan. "Body shows up again a few days later, only this time, sans organs. Somebody stole the body to perform surgery on him—the messy kind—with box cutters and kitchen knives."

"Well, someone hated his guts," Castle quipped. Another round of looks and one especially vicious glare had him pressing his fingers against his lips and raising a hand in apology. "Sorry, sorry. Not another word. Got it."

"What would someone want with his organs?" Beckett asked, bringing the attention back to the case. She could see Castle open his mouth, so she elbowed him hard to shut him up.

Jeez, the man really did not know how to stay quiet.

"Wasn't his organs they wanted," replied Davidson. "They wanted the balloons he'd swallowed. He was their drug mule."

"And you think that this guy ran dope for the Latin Kings, and this blade-man of theirs killed him for what—absconding with their drugs? What does this have to do with Chinatown?"

"Well, there's evidence to suggest that the Latin Kings' new supplier might be running operations out of Chinatown. More specifically, as part of its gambling venture."

Beckett sucked in a breath. "Latin Kings suddenly mixing it up with the Triad? I'm finding that a little hard to believe."

Davidson shrugged. "That's what we need to do. Find the connection."

The light of realization dawned on Beckett. "Aw, hell. You guys didn't call me because I got dibs on the case like Evans said. 'Operating as a liaison and consultant' my ass. You guys called me in because you want me to go in undercover again."

"It's what happens when you've got a pretty face, chica," teased Esposito.

She glared at him. "No wonder you never go deep."

Ryan belted out a laugh. "You set yourself up for that, bro."

Beckett ignored their miniature scuffle and said, "That's all well and good, but in case you guys haven't noticed, I'm neither Latino nor Chinese. What's my cover supposed to be?"

Esposito clucked his tongue at her. "I thought you were Vice, Beckett? You should know there's a horde of Russian mobsters that like to hang around the tables in Chinatown. We figured you could be a Russian hook—" Ryan kicked him and Esposito faked a cough. "—ahem. Good luck charm. A Russian good luck charm."

Beckett shook her head at them. "You guys have it all planned out, don't cha? Damn it, a Mexican street gang, the Chinese Triad, and Russian mobsters all mixed up in one shot. God, I better get a promotion for this." She heaved a deep breath. "Okay, so what's the idea? I go in and try to see if I spot Trucho lurking around the tables? Seems like a bit of a long shot, especially since we never seem to know where these games are held."

"That's the part that's gonna be a little tough," admitted Davidson. "We know several cops working undercover, but their cover is deep and we don't want to disturb those waters since this is more of a quick strike, in-and-out deal. We could try to tap our CIs, but we think it's best if we try to get a known player's recommendation. The only question is how."

"I could get in."

All eyes swung toward Castle.

"What?" Beckett eventually managed to spit out in a flat tone.

He shrugged and said, "I know a guy."

The cops all exchanged a wary glance, and Beckett's mouth dropped open. "You've got to be freaking kidding me. You_ know a guy_."

"Yeah, I met him doing some research for my Derrick Storm novels."

"Unbelievable."

"Just because I'm dedicated to my craft…"

She rolled her eyes. "Not what I was getting at, but it doesn't matter because we are not about to involve a civilian."

Castle stood up straighter. "What? Why not? I already spent an hour signing my life over in waivers, so it's not like there'll be any liability for the NYPD."

"Yeah, no liability if _you _get shot. But what if you screw up the operation? I vaguely recall you nearly blowing _my_ cover."

"Okay, that's not fair. I didn't _know _that you were on a sting that time. And besides, I did well after you told me what was going on."

"Well, that was different. Despite the fact we were in one of Oz's clubs, we were still in our territory. This time we're going straight into the Triad's backyard. Backup won't be readily at hand."

"Isn't better to have two people in than just one? At least we could back each other up," he argued.

She snorted. "Castle, I hate to break it to you, but I doubt that you could back me up at all." She grimaced when she saw the corners of his mouth twitch at her wording. "Grow up," she growled. "Besides, undercover ops are better done with as few people as possible. Less people mean less variables, therefore less chance of screwing up."

His eyes turned serious. "But, Beckett, you're going in as a prostitute. That'll be so much more dangerous for you than if I were to go in as, say, a rich, dissolute man about town. And you could be my _personal_ lucky charm! Much safer if you're already spoken for."

"You know, he's got a point, Beckett," piped up Ryan.

Beckett shifted her glare toward the Narc detective and was gratified to see that her stink eye at least worked on him. "You're kidding me."

"What? He can get you both in, and like he said, it will be better for you if it looks like you're already taken. At least you won't have to split your attention between fending off potential 'clients' and looking for our friendly neighborhood blade-man."

She snapped her gaze to Davidson and saw that he had the fingers of one hand rubbing the thick scruff along his jaw and the other slung across his barrel-chest. "Sir?"

The sergeant looked Castle up and down and nodded curtly. "It's a bit unconventional, but it might just work. At least pretty boy here'll pass for a rich, bored, thrill-seeker better than either of these guys." He addressed Castle. "You sure your guy can get you in without raising suspicion?"

"Definitely."

"Alright, it's settled then. We'll send these two in to find Trucho."

Beckett shook her head.

The universe really, _really _hated her.

* * *

_A/N: I know that it's twenty-six bestsellers in the canon before the Nikki Heat books, but since Castle is supposed to be younger in this fic, I shaved off a few bestsellers. :)_

_And because I'm such a sports fanatic, Sergeant Clay Davidson's name is a tribute to the Golden State Warriors (NBA). Clay is taken from Klay Thompson, and Davidson is the college that Stephen Curry led in huge upsets over higher-seeded teams Gonzaga, Georgetown, and Wisconsin during the 2008 NCAA basketball championship. Both guards were drafted by the Warriors in recent years._


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

* * *

"Castle, stop trying to look down my dress," Beckett hissed under her breath as she dug her nails into his back under the guise of a sensual massage.

Not that her so-called dress left much to the imagination.

Actually, it probably shouldn't be called a dress so much as a long cardigan tunic sans shirt-and-pants that stayed on just this side of decent by way of a leather belt keeping the two halves closed.

She wasn't uncomfortable with the amount of skin (and peeks of a red, lacy bra) that she showed; she'd been on Vice as a detective for more than a year and as an officer there for another year before that. With all her experience going in as bait to lure unsuspecting johns and expose prostitution rings, it was a sad but true fact that she was now very good at being slutty.

Not a skill that she thought she'd develop, even in her more rebellious, younger days, but there it was.

It wasn't anything new when the boys had all raised their eyebrows in surprise and gave her almost identical smirks when they saw her choice in (non-) clothing, but again, she'd been on enough undercover operations to brush off the comments of her fellow cops.

Castle, on the other hand, was another matter entirely.

She'd be lying if she said that a part of her hadn't hoped for exactly the reaction that she got from him: mouth gaping, eyes burning, body tense with want.

What she hadn't expected, however, was how fierce her own reaction would be to seeing the desire in him. Her nerve endings were too sensitive, and she could feel warmth pooling everywhere in her body—in her cheeks, along her neck…a furnace in her belly and lower.

It didn't help that he pulled off the debonair look with such aplomb—dark stubble lined his jaw, his hair sleeked back with light gel, and his wide shoulders encased in an open-collared, blue button-up with a gray sports jacket draped on top. His dark-washed jeans fit snugly around the surprisingly muscled-firmness of his thighs and hugged his derriere with utmost tenderness, so much so that her fingers twitched before she could stop the impulse.

This had to be the worst idea in the history of worst ideas—a recurring theme ever since Castle came into her life, she was beginning to notice.

Especially now that he had his arm wrapped around her and pulling her deep into the firm planes of his torso with every step.

She tried to keep her body loose and relaxed and carefree like the hooker she was supposed to be, but his proximity made everything harder—_difficult. More difficult, _she corrected herself.

Castle tightened his grip around her waist, and he smirked at her. "Just staying in character, sweet cheeks."

"You are _dead_ when this is over," she replied through her teeth, even as she gifted him with a coy look beneath her thick lashes.

"Promises, promises," he chided as they made their way through the gambling den to find an unobtrusive place to set watch.

Thus far, everything had gone according to plan. Castle's contact—whom they'd allowed to remain anonymous in exchange for gaining them entrance—got them the location of the game and also provided them with the necessary reference phrase to get in without any problems.

Well, not _completely_ without problems, but none that were relevant to the actual case.

_Kate's_ biggest problem right now was the fact that his constant touch, which manifested itself in a hand against the small of her back or an arm draped over her shoulders, was making her jittery enough to jump out of her skin.

She'd never felt more like a rookie, and she hated him for making her feel so green.

They seated themselves at the far end of the bar, and Castle ordered them two vodka martinis while Kate eyed him warily.

"We're not drinking on the job, Castle."

"I know. But we have to fit in right?"

He held one of the long-stemmed glasses over the open space between them and carefully dipped a corner of a napkin into the glass to soak up some of the liquid. The end effect was that the glass looked like it had been drunk from so as to lend credence to their presence at the bar.

She raised a brow at him as he repeated the action with the other glass.

"Do I even want to know why you know to do that?"

"Probably not."

She shook her head and let her gaze run over the patrons in the converted restaurant turned gaming hall. So far, she'd spotted a lot of Asians, a smattering of Russians, but no Hispanics.

Personally, she wasn't really all that optimistic about running into Trucho here. But, longshot it as it may be, this was still their best chance at determining how the Latin Kings and their drug ring tied into Triad dealings.

They'd been surreptitiously scanning the crowds from the bar for about twenty minutes when Castle suddenly stiffened by her side.

Kate immediately went on the alert. "What? What is it? You see him?"

"Heeeeey, is that Johnny Vong?" Castle was nearly squirming in his seat from excitement.

"Johnny who?"

"Johnny Vong!" Castle exclaimed as he nodded his head at a man sitting a little further down from them at the bar. He was flanked on either side by leather two Asian men. By the tattoos along their necks and arms, she guessed that these were low-level Triad members—grunts, essentially, for their higher-ranking brethren. "Don't tell me you've never heard of him?"

"Apparently I haven't," she responded dryly, the excitement of possibly spotting Trucho quickly deflating.

Castle, however, was not deterred. "He's like every insomniac's best friend! You've _so _got to see his infomercial. It will change your life. Or make you want to own a boat."

Her face screwed into mix of amusement, confusion and exasperation. "Focus, Castle."

"Hey, wait, look! He's heading to the back with those two guys."

"We're here for Trucho, not Johnny Vong."

"But they're talking about drugs!"

"What? How do you know?"

"I learned some Chinese from a show I loved," Castle explained absentmindedly while slipping off his stool and pulling her with him when he saw Vong and the Triad member on the move.

Castle wrapped his arm around her again, and she repressed the shiver he elicited with the press of his fingers against her bare skin. It was a good thing he was too distracted by his James Bond routine to notice her physical response to his touch.

Small favors, she thought. Small favors.

As unobtrusively as possible, they followed Vong and the two burly Triad members as they weaved through tables of Texas Hold'em, Blackjack, and Five-Card Stud. The crisp clicking of clay chip against clay chip was joined by the soft murmur of groans elicited by bad bets and jubilant shouts from the lucky few.

A table of tattooed Russians stopped their play momentarily when Beckett and Castle passed by to ogle at her. She repressed a shudder of revulsion. No matter how many times she'd gone undercover, she still couldn't totally suppress the well of disgust those smarmy looks provoked in her. It made her feel like she needed to take a long, burning shower to get rid of the film of grime their gazes left on her body.

It was kind of amazing how different it was from the lustful looks that Castle had cast her way. With him, she didn't feel like she was being measured like a piece of meat. She felt…appreciated. Sensually female. Powerful.

And those were such dangerous thoughts to let run wild in her head.

Shaking it off, she forced Castle to move with her past where Vong and the gang members stopped at a table where an extremely well-dressed, wealthy-looking businessman sat like a king purveying his lands. The fineness of his custom-tailored suit was a ruse, she knew, a clever disguise that masked a litany of sins: blackmail, fraud, distribution, conspiracy, murder, and who knew what else.

Perhaps more than any other organized crime ring, the Triad were experts at playing the game of legitimacy.

This particular man was a master among masters. "Clifford Lee," she murmured to herself as she backed Castle into a nearby hallway and pressed up close to him.

The couple extra inches her heels gave her brought her line of vision right at Castle's nose, and she watched in fascination when it flared once as he took in a deep breath of air. She lifted her gaze slightly to take in the sudden dilation of his pupils, his eyes widening almost comically.

"Wh-what are you doing?" he squeaked.

"Shhh. Just go with it. You're the one who wanted to do undercover," she warned, a hint of amusement tinting her voice. This was such a dangerous game she was playing, and she could blame it on the job all she wanted, but the truth was that being this close to him thrilled her in a way that all the takedowns in the world couldn't match.

She nosed her way across his cheek to whisper the explanation into his ear. "Clifford Lee is the head of the Hui Ye Tong, a merchant organization that operates out of a dim sum house. It's a pretty cover, but in reality, he's probably one of the highest ranking Triad members in the city."

It took him a while, during which she was close enough to feel the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed thickly, but he eventually managed to ask, "So this is our connection to the Latin Kings?"

"Maybe. Can you understand what they're saying?"

"I'll try."

She knew this was her cue to back off and give him some room so as to not distract him, but she found that she had trouble moving away. Then she realized that he had one arm slung tight across her hips and his other hand fisting in the hair at the nape of her neck, keeping her torso tightly aligned with his.

She stiffened, startled that she hadn't even noticed his grip on her, but it seemed like he hadn't done it on purpose. His attention was completely fixed on the conversation between Lee and Vong.

"Clifford _ge_*," greeted Vong hesitantly.

Lee didn't seem to waste any time with pleasantries. "Trucho _zenme hai mei lai?_"

"_T__a shuo haoxiang you jingcha genzong ta, suoyi zhe jitian zuihao bulai._"

"_B__en tiansheng de yi dui rou! Na women de huo zenme ban?_"

"_W__omen zhihao deng jitian cai ba huo fenfa."_

"I heard Trucho's name. What're they saying?" she whispered.

"Essentially, Lee asked about Trucho, and Johnny said that Trucho isn't coming around for the next couple of days because he thinks that cops are tailing him. Lee called Trucho a 'stupid inbred…stack of meat?' Hey, that's a great insult! I should fit that into my next book."

"Castle, the conversation?"

"Right, Lee then mentioned something about their goods, and Johnny said they'd best just wait a couple of days before distributing it."

There was a pause in conversation in which Lee stared down Vong with inscrutably cold brown eyes that made the younger man look like he was going to have an accident.

"_Mafan si le,_" Lee eventually said, the menace in his tone clear even though Beckett didn't understand a word he was saying. "_Ni qiushenbaifo _Trucho _guo jitian zhende lai. Women heishehui meiyou yuanyin jixu gen nage moxige bang hezuo. Yaoshe you shenme cacuo, ni ziji haoziweizhi._"

"What'd he just say?" she demanded.

"He said, 'Such a pain in the ass. You better pray that Trucho really comes through in the next couple of days. The Triad has no reason to continue our cooperation with that Mexican gang. If anything goes wrong, you're on your own.' Something like that."

Kate was impressed. "Huh. Not bad, Castle. Never thought you'd actually come in handy."

"Well, Detective, I can be _very _handy, if you like," he leered, his fingers trailing low on her hips before she grabbed his wandering hand and twisted it ever so slightly. He squawked a little at the pain. "Ow, ow, ow, okay, okay. Hands to myself." Then he muttered with a little pout, "You started it."

She rolled her eyes at him, her exasperation not even coming close to masking the adrenaline that started pumping through her at the thought that they just got a solid lead linking the Triad and Trucho, and by extension, the Latin Kings.

"So…not that I'm not enjoying this position very, _very _much, but if we're going to continue, I'd rather take this somewhere much more private." Castle dropped his voice low for the last couple of words, and she shuddered at the rough gravel in his tone despite herself. "Somewhere we could, say, debrief each other? I'm sure it'll be very…illuminating."

Her lips twitched at that. It was such a ridiculous line, but at the same time, it was so Castle. She was thankful, though, because the corniness of it all helped her regain her equilibrium.

It was probably a really bad idea to do this, but then again, hadn't she just thought that bad ideas and Castle went hand-in-hand?

With that slightly reckless thought, she leaned in once again, letting the heat of her breath wash over the shell of his ear. She felt his breath hitch and muscles tense before she delivered the dagger cloaked with a husky murmur.

"You have _no_ idea."

* * *

_A/N: So I know that Johnny Vong is supposed to be Laotian, or so I assume by the fact that he pretends to be from Laos, but it not too far a stretch of imagination that he would be able to speak Chinese since a good number of people in Southeast Asian countries are partly of Chinese descent._

_* Translation note: I have a confession to make. I've never seen _Firefly_. Ludicrous, I know. But, knowing how much a lot of _Castle_/Nathan Fillion fans love _Firefly_, I thought I'd throw in a reference for y'all._

_The Chinese "cuss" phrase that I used in this chapter ("笨天生的一堆肉" i.e. "stupid inbred stack of meat") was apparently actually used in the show. Apparently, there were a lot of other incredibly ridiculous Chinese curses/slang that were used in _Firefly_ also, but this one seemed the most fitting and least vulgar._

_As for the Chinese conversation, yes, I speak Chinese, so that's all me. No Google translate. Castle gave you the gist of it, but if you want to see the original Chinese and the translation side-by-side, here you go:_

_**EDIT 6.17.12: Many thanks to Ms Kitten who, **__**based on **__Firefly __**fics, **__**helped me with the conventions of using Chinese in a fic**__**. Instead of keeping the Chinese characters in the chapter, I've now switched it to **__**the pinyin version (the official romanization system used in the People's Republic of China, as opposed to the Wade-Giles system) to facilitate ease of reading. Below you'll find the pinyin that I used in the chapter, the original Chinese, and the translation in bold.**_

_"Clifford __ge_"  
"Clifford 哥"  
**_"Big Brother Clifford." _**_A note about this. "Big Brother" is often used as a sign of respect to address people with higher seniority (especially in gangs. I know this from watching a lot of Chinese dramas. Not because I was in a gang. lol)._

_"Trucho __zenme hai mei lai?_"  
"Trucho 怎么还没来?_"  
_**_"Why isn't Trucho here yet?"_**

___"__T__a shuo haoxiang you jingcha genzong ta, suoyi zhe jitian zuihao bulai._"  
"他说好像有警察跟踪他，所以这几天最好不来。"_  
_**_"He said he thinks cops are tailing him, so it's best if he doesn't come for a few days."_**

___"__B__en tiansheng de yi dui rou! na women de huo zenme ban?_"  
"笨天生的一堆肉! 那我们的货怎么办?"_  
_**_"Stupid inbred stack of meat! Then what about the goods?"_**

___"__W__omen zhihao deng jitian cai ba huo fenfa."  
_"我们只好等几天才把货分发。"_  
_**_"We have to wait a couple of days before distributing the goods."_**

_"__Mafan si le. __Ni qiushenbaifo _Trucho _guo jitian zhende lai. Women heishehui meiyou yuanyin jixu gen nage moxige bang hezuo. yaoshe you shenme cacuo, ni ziji haoziweizhi._"  
"麻烦死了.你求神拜佛Trucho过几天真的来。我们黑社会没有原因继续跟那个墨西哥帮合作。要是有什么差错，你自己好自为之。"_  
_**_"What a pain in the ass. You better pray that Trucho really comes in the next couple of days. The Triad has no reason to continue our cooperation with a Mexican gang. If anything goes wrong, you're on your own."_**


	12. Chapter 12

_EDIT 6.23.12: Because sometimes I just have to suck up my pride and admit that I didn't handle things as well as I thought I did. Author's notes irrelevant to the story itself have been removed from the previous chapter, not because I don't believe in what I said, but because this is not the right forum for it. My apologies._

* * *

Chapter Twelve

* * *

"You know what's bothering me, Detective?" Castle murmured as they lingered for a little while after Vong departed to maintain the illusion of a couple too caught up necking in the hall to care about anything else.

Kate poked him surreptitiously in the side. "No, but you're gonna get us blown if you keep calling me that."

"Ow, okay. Sorry. Undercover name, then. How about…Katerina? Oooh, Katerina," he repeated with a poorly done Russian accent. His eyes glazed over as he lost himself in what was mostly likely an X-rated daydream. "Oh yeah, that's sexy."

"Castle, will you focus?"

"Mm, yeah, I am."

"On getting out of here. We're not completely out of the woods yet."

That snapped him out of his pleasant fantasy. "Wait, what? We're leaving already? What about John Allen and his real killer?"

"What are you talking about? Trucho killed Allen."

"Did he? The task force has gathered enough to know that Allen was a drug mule, but we don't have anything about who actually murdered him. And besides, it doesn't make sense if it was Trucho. Trucho is a _blade_-man. As in, he uses a blade. Allen was strangled and tossed off a roof. It doesn't exactly add up."

Her fingers started tapping an indecisive rhythm against her thigh. "Well, investigating his murder isn't really our job. That's for Homicide to figure out."

"Yeah, but you can't tell me you're not the least bit curious," Castle cajoled, adding the weight of his bright blue eyes all alight with child-like enthusiasm. "Come on, what do your budding Homicidal instincts tell you? Ooh, that came out totally wrong. Um, homicide-investigating instincts? That's not very catchy."

"Castle. The point?"

"Right. The point is, I don't know about you, but my vast experience in killing people—on paper—tells me that there's more to the story behind this."

"A story."

"Sure. There's always a story. There's always a sequence of events that makes everything make sense."

Kate shook her head slightly, but decided to humor him just this once. It wasn't as if she really wanted to hear his theory or anything like that. Riiiight…

"Okay, so what's the story here?"

"Well, from what I saw of his bio in the case notes—"

"When'd you read the case notes?"

"When you were in the little girls' room."

"I was gone for like a minute!"

"Speed-reader. A little skill I picked up from my years stranded in the New York Public Library," he replied, brushing it off. "_Anyway_, from what I read, this John Allen guy seems like he was just your average Joe middle-class American, no criminal record, stable home. So how does a guy like that end up as a drug mule? And why?"

"Well," she slowly began as she picked up the thread he'd unraveled. "Most people smuggle drugs because they need money quickly. Maybe he was in debt."

"Right, but his financials came up clean, so…maybe he racked up debt that's unrecorded." He grinned triumphantly, eyes sparkling with the joy of telling the story. "And what better place to rack up debt than a gambling den?"

"You're saying he got in too deep here?"

"It makes sense doesn't it? Let's look at the facts."

"The facts."

"Yeah. We know that Allen suddenly felt the need to run drugs, presumably to make up his paycheck."

He looked at her expectantly, as if wanting, for some reason, her to continue his line of thought. After a brief internal battle, Kate gave in. "We know he's somehow connected to Trucho."

He grinned broadly at her, and she had the strange impression that he was...proud of her. He didn't comment on it though, choosing instead to continue their little theory-building session.

"We know that Trucho in turn is connected with the Triad."

"We know the Triad is in charge of this particular den of iniquity."

"Right, so is it really that far a stretch of imagination to think that some poker-playing loanshark is sitting at a no-limit table just waiting for the right guy to come along and be lured into betting too high, then buying him in at one of their typical cutthroat interest rates?"

Kate could see the logic in that. "Then when Allen lost it all, he had to make money fast to pay off the loanshark."

"But he couldn't pay it off in time, so the guy gets impatient and decides to make an example of Allen."

They both paused for a moment to go over the holes of the story in their heads. Beckett frowned. "That was complete conjecture. We have no evidence of anything."

"We've got all the evidence we've got right here," Castle said, sweeping his arm in front of him as he gestured at all the tables before them. "We just find the right no-limit table, spin a little story, and then bam! Step into my parlor."

She arched a fine brow at that. "I'm pretty sure Mary Howitt would consider you the fly, not the spider. Downfall brought about by vanity? Yeah, you're _so_ the fly."

"I was thinking more of the sense that we'd be setting a trap for our delightful fly to step into, but wow, you read poems."

"It's not like 'The Spider and the Fly' is really all that obscure."

"Still. You read poems. That's sexy."

"You think everything concerning the written word is sexy."

"Correction, I think everything about _you_ is sexy."

She rolled her eyes at him, but she could feel the light blush crawling up the smooth expanse of the upper swells of her breasts to spread her cheeks.

"Either way, it doesn't really matter because it's not part of our job today to get that information. Like I said, the murder is for Homicide to investigate."

"Aw, come on. We're already here. If we just so happen to hear something relevant to the case, we're not really stepping on any toes, right?"

That wasn't exactly how it worked, but before she could find it in her to muster up more than the token protest, the curious cat in her was already processing the theory they'd built and probing it for possibilities.

"How many no-limit tables are there?" she asked before she could stop herself.

"Usually there's usually four or five, for different types of poker."

"Usually? And you know this how?" she probed menacingly.

Castle sucked his lips into his mouth and winced like the kid who accidentally shattered his neighbor's window with an errant baseball. "Uh…I plead the fifth?"

She shook her head. "Unbelievable…" Then she simply had to ask because when it came down to it, she was probably just as bad as—if not worse than—he was about needing to know the story. "Do you remember anything else from Allen's file? About his autopsy report?"

"Hm. Well, he was strangled, and I took a look at the photos. It looked like whoever killed him strangled him with his bare hands. The weird thing is that the mark where the pinky finger should have been was lighter, like he couldn't use it with as much pressure."

"Broken finger maybe?"

"Could be a prosthetic."

"So what? We walk around all the no-limit tables and hope we spot someone with a fake pinky on their left hand? 'Cause that's not suspicious at all."

"Of course not," he scoffed as if that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, though his eyes gleamed with enough mischievousness for her to realize that she should be afraid—very afraid—of whatever half-baked idea he had tucked up his sleeve. "We sit down and play the game."

…

There was stupid, and then there was going-along-with-one-of-Castle's-ideas stupid.

When she'd found herself unable to do anything about the gun jammed into Castle's back without arousing suspicion in the thick crowd of gamblers, Kate felt a whole other category of stupid; namely, ridiculously-off-the-charts stupid.

And angry.

Angry at the tatted-up Russian mobster who'd marched Castle—and by extension, her—through the gambling den and toward the kitchen. Angry at Castle for being an idiot who didn't know when to just _shut up_ (because trying to bait a murderer into slipping up by making up a story out of the bare bones of a few facts that just happened to be _right _is really just _that _brilliant). But mostly, Kate was just angry at herself.

_She_ was the cop in this unorthodox shadowing experiment. _She_ was the one with all the experience. _She _was the one who should have known better than to deviate from the plan. _She_ should have been the one to pull them out right after they'd gotten what they needed from Lee and Vong.

Instead she'd been caught up in his story and in her own itching desire to dabble in Homicide.

This kind of situation was exactly the reason why they had procedure, rules. And this was also why civilians should never be trusted to go undercover.

Because Castle just _had _to tell his story, didn't he?

Rage painted the world in hazy red.

"Damn it, Castle, this is my job—my career! You can't just do stupid things like this that could potentially screw it all up for me!" she threw at him as she drove them back to the precinct—the 54th—after everything had finally played out.

Castle sent her an incredulous look, which admittedly, she deserved. Ever since they'd called in back-up to cuff Nikolai Demedov—their pinky prosthetic strangler and loanshark extraordinaire—Beckett had been feeling increasingly agitated, and she knew that she was taking it out on Castle.

Still, knowing what she was doing didn't make it any easier to _stop_ doing it.

"We caught the murderer, didn't we?" Castle asked, a little defensively.

She scoffed. "Yeah, and do you how many rules we broke?"

"No, how many?" he returned, voice nonchalant.

That made her whip her gaze over to him. "What?"

He settled back into the passenger seat, though how he could make it look like he was sprawled across such a cramped (for him) space, she couldn't figure out.

He gave that infuriating smirk. "How many rules did we break? I'm gonna go with…seven. Maybe eight."

She brought her gaze back to the road even as she tried to tamp down the eruption of fury that just wanted _out_. "Oh my God, this is all just a game to you, isn't it? Just a fun game of let's play super spy. It doesn't matter to you because you're not the one who has to face the consequences!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him straightening in his seat, and too late, she realized that his casual demeanor was a façade.

"Okay, fine, you want serious? Let's do serious. Why don't you tell me why you're so angry with me when you were more than happy to go along with the investigation earlier? It was unorthodox how we went about doing things, sure—"

She snorted. _Unorthodox_ was one way of putting it.

"—but we got the guy because of it," he finished without acknowledging her interruption. "I didn't hear you complaining before."

"I know! And that's what makes me such an idiot!"

She broke off and stared resolutely on the road, willing the damn tears—why the hell was she tearing up anyway?—from falling.

Kate Beckett was a rational person. She didn't give into fits of histrionics or throw out wild accusations at people who didn't deserve it. So what the hell was wrong with her?

She clenched her jaw. The problem was that she knew _exactly_ what was wrong.

In just four weeks, it'll have been seven years. Seven years since she and her dad came home to find that detective—Detective Raglan—waiting for them. Seven years since they'd crossed that yellow tape, her world shattered and naivety destroyed. Seven years since every moment of every day became about finding justice for her mother.

Seven years.

And in half an hour, she'd almost thrown away seven years of hard work because she'd gotten caught up in one of Castle's stories. Seven years she'd almost spilled down the drain because she suddenly saw herself as the heroine in one of his novels. Seven years she'd almost destroyed in a moment that would have been professional suicide if anything at all had gone sideways.

Seven goddamn years.

If wasn't his fault. (Not entirely his fault, anyway.) She knew that. But damn it, she just couldn't believe how she'd let herself come so close to ruining everything that meant anything to her at all.

_Get into the Academy._

_Make detective._

_Transfer to homicide._

_Solve her mother's murder and put the bastard who did it behind bars for good._

How many times had she repeated these very words to herself? How many times had she chanted them like a prayer in her head, a four-step battle plan pushing her to get over her physical limitations? How many times had she wanted to bury her head in the ground like her father did, to drown herself in sorrow only to be reminded by these four simple goals that she had something to fight for?

But tonight...

Tonight, she'd lost sight of her endgame, and she couldn't allow herself to do that ever again. She couldn't let anything get in the way of this.

Still, this was a personal problem of hers, and Castle didn't deserve this kind of unwarranted abuse from her.

"I'm sorry," she finally conceded, breaking the tense plane of silence that had settled around them.

"It's fine," he replied, and she knew that he would let this go. He wouldn't push, and when he said that _it's fine, _he really meant it. The Richard Castle she'd come to know in the time she'd spent with him was surprisingly gracious.

But…he deserved more than that. He'd been…a friend, and maybe for the first time in her life, she _wanted_ to explain.

So she took a deep breath, focused her eyed doggedly on the road, and began. "Remember that day in the park you asked me why I became a cop? You were right. About everything." She swallowed, licked her lips, her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. "My mother…my mother was murdered seven years ago."

"Kate, you don't have to tell me this. I don't—"

"No, I should. It's good for me."

She let out a huff of humorless laughter, equal parts embarrassed and frustrated with herself for not being to just talk about this normally. But then again, when had she ever been normal?

"She'd been stabbed. In an alley."

The words came slowly, tentatively, as if by speaking the words, she was recreating her mother's death. And maybe she was. That was the beauty of words, wasn't it? That it could capture a moment, suspend it?

"A robbery?" Castle asked, voice respectfully soft.

Kate shook her head. "No. She still had her money and purse and jewelry. And it wasn't a sexual assault, either. Gang violence, they said. Random wayward event. They never caught the killer. And I couldn't let go of that."

"That's why you became a cop. You wanted—want—answers."

She nodded. "That's part of it. I want answers for every victim, every family that was torn apart like mine was. Answers that I haven't gotten yet. Mostly, though...Mostly I just want justice. That's why...It's not really a good reason for blowing up at you, but that's why I reacted so badly just now. I put in my papers to transfer to Homicide just weeks ago, and I can't let anything show up in my performance report that might sway the high-ups into believing I'll be anything but the best homicide detective there can be. I _need _to be Homicide."

His lips parted and his eyes lit in understanding. "You want to reopen her case."

The fire that she usually banked behind composure and tightly controlled emotion flared up hot and bright at his words. "Yes. I want—No, I _will_ find her killer. And when I do, I'm going to throw his sorry ass behind bars for the rest of his miserable life."

She could feel him studying her intently with those writer's eyes that saw too much, and she wondered if he'd be repulsed by the strength of her vicious ferocity. She refused to meet his gaze.

Let him come to whatever conclusions he will.

He nodded. "I understand."

She gave him a faint smile, but she couldn't help but think, _You can't possibly understand._

* * *

_A/N: I think this is a good time to remind everyone that this fic is labeled "Drama" and not "Humor" for a reason. I'm trying, for the most part, to keep the balance between the serious and humorous that's found on the show, and overall, this will stay on the lighter side, but there will also be some moments in the indeterminate future that are kind of heavy. It won't be an angst-fest, but it won't stay forever light-hearted. Just thought to give a fair warning because I know a lot of you enjoy this fic for its humor._


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out. I wanted to finish up **No Rest for the Weary** first (I'm soooo close to finishing that one!), but this chapter just came pouring out of my fingers today, so go figure. :D For everybody who's been asking about Alexis, she makes her reappearance in this chapter (yay!). I'm still figuring out the best way to balance the case aspects and the family/romance aspects, so sorry if Alexis disappears for several chapters at a time. _

_In any case, thanks for your patience, and here's a (relatively) longer chapter for your enjoyment!_

_(And I just have to say this because I think it's super cool: Thanks to Shatun68 for giving me my first review in a language other than English. I Google-translated it, and I think I got the general gist of it, but Google translate can be pretty iffy so I hope I understood it correctly... Either way, it was pretty darn awesome, so thanks!) Also, huge thanks to all my other readers, favorite-ers, alert-ers, and reviewers!_

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

* * *

Rick went home feeling uncharacteristically subdued.

The evening had begun well enough, what with Beckett in that…outfit (oh man oh man oh man, that _outfit_) and her sexy as hell Russian accent that had totally blown his mind when it slipped from her red-rouged lips the for the first time (and the second, the third, and basically whenever she talked).

When Beckett had pulled away from him in the hallway after they'd heard enough of the conversation to direct their investigation and left him with nothing but the faint scent of cherries lingering in her wake, Rick couldn't help hoping that this wouldn't be the last time he'd ever get this close to her.

His heart had nearly stopped, and it hadn't been because their pinky prosthetic Russian mobster had forced them away from the main room and into the kitchen at gunpoint. No, that was entirely because Beckett had draped herself over Rick's back, drawing her hands up his shoulders to distract the man—both the men, truth be told—before whipping around in a roundhouse kick that had their killer incapacitated before Rick could even blink.

(And he really hadn't wanted to blink because her pseudo-skirt had ridden up—high up—the long length of her thighs as she secured Demedov's arms behind him. Rick had barely managed to break out of his stupor when she wriggled her fingers for the cuffs she'd kept in his pockets since she couldn't exactly hide them in her outfit.)

By the time backup came and she'd thrown on an oversized NYPD windbreaker over her dress, he couldn't decide whether he was the luckiest man alive to have had a brush with the sweetness of heaven, or if he was a condemned man, always destined to come only so close before having it all snatched away.

Okay, so maybe that was being just a tad melodramatic.

But jeez, she was one enticing little minx, all dangerous and sensual and hot and smart and strong and—

And broken.

Well, maybe not broken exactly, but fractured. Splintered at the edges. Brittle.

No, brittle wasn't a good word either. Brittle connoted something that could shatter with a single drop. He got the feeling that Beckett wouldn't ever shatter. She'd be the rock standing still even amidst the howling winds and trammeling waves.

Rick had been beyond surprised when she'd willingly shared such an intimate and painful part of her life with him.

He was a writer; he lived for the stories. He often—and sometimes accidentally callously—dug around for the lifeblood of a person, for the origin story that made them who they were. And yet, in the car last night, he almost _hadn't_ wanted to know.

He hadn't wanted to know because the process of telling him—reliving the awful tragedy of it all—meant pain for her, and for reasons he still had yet to figure out, he couldn't stand the mere thought of causing her pain.

Instead of triumph at the knowledge that he'd read her correctly, all he'd felt was…humbled. Yes, humbled and honored that this tightly sealed up secret, this intensely private woman was willingly giving him the key to her heartache, this crucial, foundational piece of her that had made her who she was.

It stirred up an odd mix of euphoria and reverence in his chest.

A light knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts. "Daddy?" came his daughter's muffled call from the other side.

He glanced at the clock and saw that it was blinking 12:17 a.m. Alexis should be deep in sleep by now.

He swung his legs off his bed and went to open his bedroom door. He found Alexis standing there in her pink pajamas printed with Hello Kitty faces and one small hand gripping tightly onto Monkey-Bunkey. She fidgeted a little, small baby teeth sinking into her lower lip in a gesture that was alarmingly similar to one Detective Beckett.

He crouched down so that they were almost at eye level. "What's wrong, pumpkin?"

She shuffled a little on her feet, her blue eyes shaded by the long lengths of her lashes. "I sleep bad."

"Did you have a bad dream?"

"Don't 'member. Just sleep bad," she replied, but Castle could tell that she was equivocating. She only ever did that when she had nightmares about people leaving her.

Castle stifled a frustrated sigh. Even though Alexis had only been two when the divorce with Meredith had been finalized, and it wasn't as if her mother had been a steady presence in her life even before that, every now and then, Alexis still showed symptoms of separation anxiety. For the most part, Alexis was perfectly fine during her waking moments, but even two years after the divorce, Alexis still had internalized fears that showed up in her nightmares.

Just one of the many "gifts" Meredith had left their daughter with.

Castle forced the bitter thoughts about his ex-wife away and smiled gently at Alexis. "Come on. Let's go back upstairs, and I'll tell you and Monkey-Bunkey another bedtime story. How's that?"

Alexis nodded. "'Kay."

It bothered him that Alexis was still so shy about coming to him about her sleeping problems. It was almost as if she blamed herself for not being able to sleep normally, even though none of it was her fault.

God, Alexis was only four years old, and she was already so mature in her thinking. Castle liked to joke that it was his superior genes that contributed to her quick mental development, but moments like this made him almost wish that Alexis wasn't able to grasp these abstract concepts so adroitly. He didn't want to change a single thing about his amazing daughter, but she shouldn't have to be so burdened by psychology. She should have the opportunity to just be the little girl that she was. She shouldn't have to be worried about whether or not the people she cared about in her life were suddenly going to abandon her.

Damn Meredith. Damn, irresponsible Meredith.

Then again, who was he to talk? He was the one who married her.

…

"Daddy, can I see Kate t'morrow?"

Alexis was tucked up against Rick's side as he sat with his back against the headboard of her bed. She struggled valiantly to keep her eyes open, but her exhausted body wanted its much-needed rest. He stroked his fingers through the soft fineness of her copper-shaded locks, knowing that playing with her hair was an almost surefire method of lulling Alexis to sleep.

He kept his voice a low murmur. "Kate? We just saw her this past weekend, sweetheart."

Alexis fell silent, and Castle thought she'd fallen asleep when she drowsily confessed, "Bad dream. Wanna see Kate."

Rick startled and craned his neck to look at Alexis, but she had finally dropped off right after she spoke.

_Bad dream. Kate_.

Oh jeez. Alexis had a separation anxiety induced nightmare about something happening to Beckett?

For the first time, Rick wondered if he was being irresponsible by letting Alexis bond with the detective so much. Beckett was a natural hand with Alexis, but he could also tell that Beckett was leery about furthering her association with them—more specifically, with him. Was he wrong to expose Alexis to Beckett only to have his daughter get attached to someone who had no obligation to hang around with them, who might just as easily drop out of their lives as she had dropped into it?

And now that Alexis was _already_ attached, should he play it safe by severing the ties early to ensure that Alexis wouldn't get hurt any more than she would now if Beckett really did decide that she didn't want to spend time with them anymore?

Or should he up his pursuit to ensure that Beckett became a permanent fixture in their lives?

Part of him was horrified by the fact the second scenario was even a possibility. Had he not already been burned by a quick marriage once? How could he possibly consider getting himself involved in a serious relationship when he'd known Beckett for all of two weeks? Not to mention the certainty that Beckett would not be an easy person to have a relationship with. (And why in the world was he thinking about this in terms of a relationship between him and Beckett in the first place? Shouldn't he be thinking about it in terms of _Alexis_' relationship with Beckett?)

The problem, he conceded, was that he already couldn't remember what his life was like before Kate Beckett. She'd entranced him completely. She was a mystery that he would never solve, one he'd eagerly spend lifetimes unraveling.

But where did that leave Alexis? Could he really willingly put her in the path of something that could devastate her big little heart? Could he really make that high risk, high reward gamble?

Or maybe the better question was, even if he decided that the possible fallout was too disastrous for the risk to be worth it, could he—knowing what he did about Kate Beckett—could he let her go even now?

It didn't take long for him to realize that no—no, he couldn't.

…

Kate was surprised when Castle didn't come into the station for a whole week after the Chinatown incident. He'd texted her of course for updates on the case, but aside from that, she hadn't heard from the man at all.

So much for spending all that effort to get himself insinuated into shadowing her. He wasn't even taking advantage of it!

Annoyed that she was annoyed that he didn't bother showing up, Kate convinced herself that she shouldn't have expected anything else. The guy had all the attention span of a kid high on sugar, so why should it be surprising that once he'd gotten to do his fun undercover work, he wouldn't bother coming in anymore?

She ruthlessly swallowed the hurt that dared to swell up when she remembered how she'd stupidly exposed such an essential piece of herself to him that night. Stupid and humiliated because her personal tragedy obviously didn't matter much to him if he couldn't even bother to find time in his busy schedule to drag himself into the precinct. Or maybe he'd made himself scarce precisely because he got scared off by her emotional wounds.

Whatever. It wasn't like she wanted him around in the first place.

She buried herself back in the case. John Allen's murder ended up being unrelated with the drug ring, but the connection between Trucho and Vong had been a good lead. Unfortunately, they hadn't moved forward much with it. Trucho was being supplied by Vong, so it stood to reason that Vong was the connection to the drug ring OC was pursuing.

The problem resided in the fact that it was quite obvious that Vong was just another rung on the ladder, nowhere near high enough to make any real impact should they take him in now. It would be better to set the lure and see where he led them. That being said, aside from lame infomercials that ran late into the night for all those insomniacs (like Castle, put in her oh-so-helpful mind) and a real estate system that may or may not be completely bogus, Vong wasn't leading them anywhere.

Her cell went off and she didn't bother glancing at the caller ID before answering distractedly, "Beckett."

"Detective. Always good to hear your voice."

"Castle." She dropped her pen and sat up straight in her chair, glancing surreptitiously around her as if he would suddenly pop up out of nowhere. "What do you want?"

There was a pause on the other end, and when he did speak, he seemed almost reluctant. "I have a favor to ask."

She scoffed. "What? Did you get arrested for disturbing the peace and now you need me to get you out?" A longer pause and she realized that he was serious. "What's wrong, Castle?"

"It's Alexis."

Panic was a vice grip across her chest. "Alexis? What happened to Alexis?"

"No, no, no. Nothing's happened to Alexis," he hurriedly reassured her. "Well, not exactly anyway."

"What do you mean 'not exactly'?"

"Look, she just wants to see you okay?"

Kate let out a huge sigh of relief. "God, Castle. Could you _be_ any more cryptic? Why didn't you just say so? Today's Friday, right? I have a half-day off this Sunday. I can drop by and see her then."

"Great. That sounds…great."

"Okay, that does not sound like you think it's great. What is up with you?"

"Damn it, I should have just come in for this. I didn't want to do this over the phone."

"Seriously. Just spit it out."

She heard him let out a huge sigh. "Look, Alexis' mother and I divorced when Alexis was two. Most of the time, Alexis is fine, but sometimes she still gets nightmares. Separation anxiety. The other night, she had a nightmare about you."

"A nightmare. About me?"

"She won't tell me what it's about, but I think she just really wants to see that you're okay. She's been asking about you a lot."

"Wait, go back. Separation anxiety? Castle, I've only hung out with you guys like three times. Why would she have separation anxiety issues about me?"

"She just…kind of…imprinted on you. Like a baby bird, maybe? I don't know. This is why I wanted to wait until we came back from California to talk with you about this."

"Wait, you're in California?"

"What? Oh, no. But we're spending Christmas in California so that Alexis can spend some time with her mom. Meredith can't be trusted to make the flight out to New York, so I've found it's better to go to her."

"Oh," Kate replied dumbly. She can't be disappointed that Castle and Alexis won't be around for the holidays. She can't be. "So…what does this have to do with me again?"

"I wanted to ask you if you'd be willing to spend more regular time with Alexis."

"Whoa, wait, what? That _can't_ be a good idea. I'm barely even a family friend! You can't just let her get attached to me."

"I know it's asking a lot, but there aren't a lot of women I can trust Alexis around, and she really likes you. Most kids with minor cases of separation anxiety grow out of it by the time they start preschool and kindergarten, so really I just want you to be a steady presence in her life for the next year. Or no, even less than that. For the next couple of months."

"Castle, do you even hear yourself?"

"Yes, and I've thought about this a lot. Like I said, I wanted to talk to you in person about this after the holidays, and I don't want to make you feel obligated to do this, but Alexis has been having nightmares almost every night this week, and I just don't know what else to do. That's why I've stayed home every day this week and cancelled her art classes. But it hasn't seemed to help. And I know, I just _know_, that seeing Meredith again is going to stir up a whole new mess of issues, and I wanted to help Alexis resolve this one fear before heading out there."

Oh.

Wow.

That…definitely put a different light on things.

Kate suddenly felt guilty for all the uncharitable thoughts that had crossed her mind during this week about why he hadn't come in. Castle was just trying to be a good dad, and here she'd thought the worst of him.

She chewed her bottom lip as she considered her options. On the one hand, she absolutely adored Alexis and would love to hang out with her regardless of everything else. On the other hand, was it really a good idea to let the little girl get more attached to her when Kate had just resolved not to drag the Castles into the mess that was her life?

But it wasn't as if Kate could just ignore Alexis' separation anxiety issues and pretend they didn't exist. If the little girl needed to see her to have those fears relieved, it was an easy solution for Kate to just spend some time with her. Short term at least. As for everything else…well, she'll wait until after the holidays to figure out the best approach to that. Or hell, maybe after a couple of weeks with her mom, Alexis won't remember Kate anyway.

Kate didn't look too hard into why the thought of that made her feel unaccountably sick.

"—I just really want to make sure that Alexis has one less worry on her mind—"

"Okay," she said, interrupting Castle's rambling.

"—and I know—" Castle paused. "What?"

"I said okay."

"Really?"

She rolled her eyes, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Just…let's take this one step at a time. I'll spend some time with Alexis before you guys go on your trip and…we'll reevaluate when you come back."

"Uh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's—that's great! Thank you, Detective. Really, I appreciate."

"Not doing it for you, Writer Boy."

"Writer _Man_, Detective. Writer _Man_."

She chuckled despite herself. "When do you leave?"

"We're flying out next Thursday, so that's the—let me look at the calendar—the 22nd. And we'll be back on the 29th. Just in time, I might add, to prepare for our annual New Year's party, which you are invited to, by the way."

"Don't think so Castle. I have a feeling your parties are a little too rich for my blood."

"Please just think about it? I'll be sure to invite Ryan and Esposito and Sergeant Davidson, too."

She shook her head. "Figure out one thing before the next, why don't you? Like I said, I have a half-day this Sunday, and if Alexis is still feeling out of sorts, maybe I can drop by to take her out for dinner on Wednesday or something."

"Or you could have dinner at my place," he blurted out.

"Castle—"

"No, hear me out. It can be a thank you dinner. For both being willing to spend time with Alexis and also for letting me shadow you on the case."

"I don't need a thank you for hanging out with Alexis, but you better offer a helluva lot more than just dinner if you really want to thank me for butting your head into my job."

"I can do that."

She could almost see the grin on the other end, and she found herself smiling at the thought. A happy, carefree Castle fit her worldview much better than the anxiety-driven one she'd just been exposed to.

"I take payment in chocolate and coffee, just so you know."

"Done and done."


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: *peeks out from beneath my hiding place for pitchforks and other sharp instruments of torture for not updating this story in so long*_

_Am I safe? _

_Gah, I am SO incredibly sorry this hasn't been updated in a while. I hit a major case of writer's block—or, as seen on the Richard Castle website, writer's embarrassment wherein I'm "so embarrassed by the horrendous drivel you're writing that you can't bear to see it on the page." Thankfully, I think I'm back in the swing of things because the next chapter of this is already half-written._

_To the anonymous reviewer whose question I forgot to answer a couple chapters back: I couldn't find the exact review, so I hope I'm getting this right, but I think the question was whether, at this point in the story, Kate had begun investigating her mother's murder. This is a great question because it's something I've changed from the canon. In this story, Kate has indeed tried to go through the old case files, but she hasn't gone to therapy for it._

_I'm always welcome to any questions you may have about the story. If it's something that I think will not spoil the story, I'll be happy to answer it for everyone to see. Otherwise, I'll ask you to either PM me or ask me on my Tumblr (scripting-life), and if you really want to know, then I'll answer you privately so as to not spoil the story for everyone else. _

_I'm also open to any corrections and/or mistakes that you pick up. I don't have a beta, but I do proofread several times before I publish. However, it's inevitable that some errors escape my eye. If you see something, please do mention it, and I'll try to get it fixed in a timely manner. Thanks!_

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

* * *

By the time Saturday night rolled around, Kate was second-guessing herself like no other.

She'd agreed to hang out with Alexis one-on-one, but it was just now that she was remembering that she didn't really know how to interact with kids, never mind one that kind of just attached onto her like—what had Castle called it?

Oh yeah. Like a baby bird.

She didn't know what to do with baby birds, much less baby _people_.

She wracked her mind trying to remember what her parents had done with her for fun when she was four, but jeez, that was more than twenty years ago and who actually remembered stuff from way back when?

They'd gone camping on numerous summers when she was a kid, but that obviously wasn't going to be an option. She'd also spent a lot of time exploring magic shops with her amateur magician grandfather, and she and her dad were almost religious about attending Mets games at Shea. Unfortunately, it was dead in the middle of winter so baseball was out. And somehow a magic shop didn't seem like the right thing to bring a four-year-old to.

Of course, there was always the museum, but Kate got the feeling that Castle was a dinosaur and history kind of guy and would have probably already brought Alexis to the museum at least once or twice before.

What else could she do?

Something caught her attention from the corner of her eye and gave her pause. It was just the ostentatious cover of a novel she'd purchased and hadn't yet read, but the bright flash of color gave her an idea.

Now, where did she put them again?

…

Alexis didn't like it when she made her daddy sad. Well, he didn't really get sad. Not like Alexis got when she was sad. Daddy didn't cry or need Monkey-Bunkey to go to sleep.

It was a different kind of sad. The kind of sad that he got when Alexis slept bad. His eyes would get all dark, and sometimes he looked a little mad too. Daddy never lied to her, but sometimes she didn't really believe him when he told her that he wasn't mad at her. She didn't know who else he would be mad at. After all, Alexis was the one who couldn't sleep, so it had to be _her_ fault, didn't it?

She didn't get it, but she knew that she wanted Daddy to not be sad.

So Alexis tried not to tell Daddy all the times she slept bad. Some nights though…some nights were really _really _bad, and she couldn't stop the need to go find Daddy.

Tonight was one of those nights.

With Monkey-Bunkey tucked securely under one arm, Alexis crawled out of bed. She reached up on her tippy toes to get turn the doorknob to open the door. Down the stairs she went with one hand always holding onto the railing like her daddy told her, the dim glow of a couple nightlights making it easy for her to make her way to Daddy's bedroom.

She raised a hand to knock on his door, but just before she made contact with the dark-polished wood, she stopped.

She hesitated outside his door, not really wanting to wake up Daddy, but her dreams really were bad tonight. There was a bad man—a scary man—in her dreams, and she wanted Daddy to scare him away. Because if Daddy didn't make the bad man go away, then _Kate _would get taken away.

Alexis hugged Monkey-Bunkey a little tighter for comfort.

She didn't want to wake Daddy up. She was a big girl now—all of four years old. Big girls didn't wake Daddy up in the middle of the night because of a bad dream.

Besides, she'll see Kate tomorrow.

Maybe then Alexis will stop seeing the scary man in her dreams.

Alexis went back to her room without knocking on the door.

…

Kate showed up outside Castle's building at eight the next morning.

The doorman, Eduardo, ushered her in after she gave her name, telling her that Castle had already mentioned that she was coming. She was in the elevator and out on the top floor before she could catch her breath. Then she was down the hall and ringing his doorbell and—

_Holy smokes!_

This was where Castle lived?

She felt like Alfred in the Batcave for the first time.

"Beckett, come on in."

Castle ushered her inside, and she couldn't help but breathe an impressed "Wow" when she took in the loft apartment.

Maybe it hadn't been entirely fair, but she'd imagined that his place would be more of a bachelor pad, with cool toys and worn-in sofas with thick cushions meant for days on end of mad gaming. She's also imagined that it would be messy.

Instead, she'd walked into a tastefully decorated abode that, for all the affluence on display, was surprisingly family-oriented.

She shouldn't have been surprised that it was all very kid-friendly despite the elegant stainless steel and black marble theme of the kitchen and the dark-themed sophistication of the living room, but she was.

Along the top of one long cabinet sat a progression of framed photos of Alexis as a newborn to one of her on her latest birthday. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky shared shelf space with Stephen King and George R.R. Martin on the artistic bookshelf walls that separated the open plan kitchen-living room area from what looked like an office or a study. (She _wasn't _surprised to see a whole shelf dedicated to Castle's own books.) On the lowest shelf and within easy access for Alexis were a row of Dr. Seuss and a slew of other picture books.

Favorite toys occupied the open cubbies located next to a sleek black baby grand piano. Of course, there wasn't a lack of "big kids" entertainment, judging from the Xbox 360 and the _Rock Band_/_Guitar Hero_ equipment set up to the side of the 60-inch plasma TV.

Still, all in all, this wasn't a place meant to wow with its accoutrements; it was a home where comfort was the highest priority.

It seemed like every new piece of information she uncovered about him proved her preconceptions just a little bit more wrong.

"Nice place, Castle," she finally said, hoping that she didn't sound as cowed as she felt.

Was it strange that she was more intimidated by how _lived-in_ loft felt than by the proof of his wealth?

"Thanks," he replied with an uneasy grin.

It took her a few seconds to realize that he was…shy? No, that's not a word that could ever be used to describe Richard Castle.

Uncomfortable.

Apprehensive, maybe? Almost like he wanted her approval.

Oh, wow. Not going there, Katie. So not going there.

She glanced at him and noticed that he was watching her reaction curiously, and she flushed despite herself.

Rich or not, Castle was still the same annoying (entertaining), childish (sweet), pain-in-the-ass (surprisingly helpful) shadow that he was before. No reason to feel so squirmy just because he has the most gorgeous home she'd ever laid eyes on.

She cleared her throat. "So is Alexis up yet? I know this is kinda early, but I have to get into the station by one, so—"

"Detective," he cut off. "Alexis was so excited, she took forever falling asleep last night, and she was up at five thirty this morning, scared that she might miss you."

"Oh," said Kate a little dumbly. She'd never had anyone look forward to seeing her that much before. It was kind of humbling.

He didn't notice her moment of quiet surprise, having already turned his back to her as he made for the open staircase to their right. "Let me go get her. She's been really looking forward to this."

He took one step, paused, and then came back.

"My mother would throw a melodramatic fit at my manners—or lack thereof," he laughed self-deprecatingly when he saw that Kate was standing hesitantly just inside the front door.

He stepped behind her to take off her coat and hung it up in the coat closet in an unnecessary, but gentlemanly gesture that kicked up her pulse for absolutely no reason other than the fact that his fingers brushed against the sensitive skin at the back of her neck. A wave of electricity shot through her body and she tensed to stop the shiver from coursing through her.

Damn the man and his heated touch.

"I made you a cup of coffee on the counter, but if it's not hot enough, there's more in the carafe," Castle said as he led her into the kitchen and gestured as his coffee condiments. "Milk—skim and regular—and sugar are next to it, and if you want to go flavored, I have French vanilla, hazelnut, and Irish crème creamers."

Slightly overwhelmed by both his hospitality and her nerves still rattling from his touch, she forced a shaky laugh from her lips. "I'm fine, Castle. Go get Alexis."

He hesitated for a second, looking like he wanted to say something, and Kate didn't know whether she wanted him to say whatever was on his mind or not. In the end, he didn't, leaving her in the kitchen to fix her coffee to her heart's content.

When she was sure that Castle was upstairs and firmly out of hearing range, Kate let out a huge breath of air.

She really had to get a grip on her response to him.

_Or_, suggested the devil on her shoulder, _you could take Lanie's advice and get him out of your system._

She shook her head. Lanie was a terrible influence.

Kate had barely settled her nerves when she heard the jangle of keys outside the front door.

Oh god. What if Castle was involved with someone else? Someone who had his _house keys_?

She suppressed the irrational wave of jealousy (he wasn't anyone to her but an annoying shadow, she reminded herself firmly), and belatedly realized that the bigger problem was _her own _presence in Castle's loft at eight in the morning making herself at home in his kitchen.

She hoped that Castle's girlfriend wasn't the type to shriek first and listen later.

The door swung open and Kate froze in place when she recognized the woman who made her sweeping entrance.

That wasn't Richard Castle's girlfriend.

Oh no. This was worse.

She was Martha Rodgers—his _mother_.

Kate recognized her from a couple of stage productions she'd attended with her parents, and she had about two seconds to process the realization before the older woman spotted her in the kitchen.

"Well, look at who we have here! And here I thought I'd be the only one doing the walk of shame this morning."

"Oh, I'm not—that is—I'm just—"

"Darling, I'm hardly one to judge."

"No! I'm really not—"

"Though I must say," Martha studied her with a critical eye that made Kate want to squirm in embarrassment, "you do seem different from my son's usual fare."

Kate blinked stupidly. "Uh, thanks. I think." Then she hurriedly added, "But I'm not sleeping with Castle."

"Oh?"

Kate was saved from an answer by the hurried stomping of small feet down the stairs and she found herself with an armful of four-year-old before she knew it.

"Kate!"

"Oof! Oh wow, Alexis, you must've grown a foot since the last time I saw you."

The little girl giggled and hugged Kate tighter around the neck. Kate didn't need experience with kids to feel the light tremors coursing through the Alexis' body and to spot the quiet neediness that laced through her enthusiasm.

Castle was right. Alexis had really needed to see her in person.

Kate met Castle's eyes over Alexis's shoulder, and she gave him a small nod of understanding. Kate still wasn't sure how much she could help, but it was no hardship on her part to spend some time with the girl.

Martha cleared her throat lightly. "Ah, I see how it is. Alexis has a new friend, so she doesn't even give her poor grandmother a kiss good morning."

Alexis giggled again, removed herself from Kate's arms, and launched herself into Martha's embrace. "G'morning, Gram!" she greeted with a loud smack of her lips on Martha's cheek.

Martha winked at Kate, and the detective found herself smiling in response. The actress was just as charismatic off-stage as she was on it.

"Richard, aren't you going to introduce us?" Martha asked pointedly when Alexis removed herself from her grandmother and latched onto Kate's leg like a starfish.

Kate was torn somewhere between laughter, embarrassment, and stupefication. This family was _way_ too much for her.

"I was hoping to avoid traumatizing her, but if you insist," Castle replied dryly. Then he cleared his throat and straightened his back theatrically. "Ahem! Mother, this is Detective Kate Beckett. Beckett, this is—"

"Martha Rodgers," Kate interrupted. "I know. My parents and I have seen a number of your productions on stage."

Martha clasped her hands together and her eyes—already filled with all manner joie de vivre—lit up considerably. "Oh, what discerning tastes you have! It's nice to see Richard bring home a girl with some class for once."

"Mother, one: stop slandering me in front of my guest. Two: as you can see, Beckett is here for Alexis, not me. And three: I agree completely that Detective Beckett has excellent taste." He grinned at Kate. "I _am_ her favorite author, after all."

Kate narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't go putting words in my mouth. Just because I read your books doesn't make you my favorite author. I enjoy the genre. That's all."

"Mmhm. So you've said." He turned to his mother in a mock aside. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

"You're misuing the line," Kate shot back immediately. "In Shakespeare's time, _to protest_ isn't _to deny_. Gertrude was criticizing the Player Queen in Hamlet's play for protesting too much—that is, being too fervent in her avowal of undying devotion to the Player King as to be credible. Everybody just bastardizes the usage nowadays."

She reddened when she realized that she'd just corrected Richard Castle, best-selling author and son of renowned Broadway diva Martha Rodgers, who'd probably done dozens of Shakespearean productions in her time, on his use of a line in _Hamlet_.

Castle and Martha stared at her in surprise for a moment before a low chuckle hummed from the throat of the matriarch. "She's got you there, kiddo."

A slow grin spread across Castle's lips. "So freaking hot."

Kate's flush deepened when she saw Martha give Castle a not so discrete thumbs-up approval. Oh jeez. Their family was incredibly forward.

She felt a light tug on her pant leg, and she looked down to find Alexis shyly waiting for her attention.

Ah, yeah. The adults had been kind of neglecting her, hadn't they?

"What is it, Alexis?"

"Where we goin'?"

Kate pressed her lips into an enigmatic smile. "Unh-unh. No clues. You'll see when we get there. But first, do you have a beanie and some mittens?"

Alexis nodded. "In my backpack. Daddy put them in."

"Great! Then I think we're good to go." Kate turned to face Castle. "If that's okay with your dad, that is."

Alexis turned huge, luminous eyes on Castle, and Kate wondered if he ever managed to say _no _to that face. She sure as hell wouldn't be able to. "Daddy?"

Apparently Castle was made of tougher stuff than Kate (at least when it came to his kid) or he had a damn good poker face because he didn't say _yes_ immediately. Instead, he turned his attention to Kate to ask, "You're not going to tell me where you're taking my kid either?"

She pressed her lips together and lifted an eyebrow. "No. Girls' day out, Castle. You asked for it."

He sighed dramatically, but Kate could tell that he was happy with her response. It took her a second, but she quickly figured out that it was because she was making this a true her-and-Alexis thing. She'd never seen anyone so glad to be _not included_ before.

"Ah well, I guess I'll just have to grill this little pumpkin," he scooped up Alexis and pretended to chomp on her neck, "to tell me what manner of madness you corrupted her with when you get back."

Kate snorted inelegantly. "Yeah, somehow I doubt _I'm_ the corrupting influence here."

Castle nodded. "You're right. My mother is."

Martha smacked him on the arm with the pair of aqua gloves that Kate just now noticed was in her hands. It wasn't all too surprising that Kate missed seeing them though. The actress was nothing if not flamboyantly, albeit tastefully, dressed.

"See?" Castle insisted. "Teaching my kid violence right there."

"Aren't you just the funny man?" Martha turned to address Kate. "Detective Beckett, I think you'd best run along with Alexis now before this one," she gestured at Castle, "fills the poor girl with anymore lies."

"Will do. It was nice meeting you, Ms. Rodgers."

"Oh please! Call me Martha. Ms. Rodgers makes me sound so…_stuffy_."

Kate grinned. "Okay. And it's Kate for me."

Alexis tugged on the hem of her shirt. "Come _on_. I wanna know where we going!"

Kate gathered up her coat and Alexis' backpack and hastily waved goodbye.

It should have been awkward really, what with the misunderstanding with Martha and everything, but there truly was something special about the Castle-Rodgers clan. They made it almost impossible to feel unwelcomed.

…

Rick knew he was in trouble when he saw the devious twinkle in his mother's eyes.

"Sooo. That was Detective Beckett."

He busied himself with making a cup of coffee. "Yes, that was."

"Charming girl. I was surprised when you told me you trusted her enough to let Alexis spend half the day with her alone, but I suppose I can see why."

Rick tensed, not sure exactly what his mother meant by that. If she was insinuating that he was using Alexis to get close to Beckett...

Martha rolled her eyes when she correctly interpreted the look on his face. "Oh relax, kiddo! I just meant that the detective is very good with Alexis."

"She is."

Martha studied him. "Not often you get so tight-lipped about a girl." When she couldn't seem to elicit a response, she shook her head and headed for the stairs. "Fine, fine. Be that way. Don't say I didn't warn you though: the good ones always take a helluva lot more effort than you're usually willing to put in."

When Martha was out of sight, Rick sighed and rubbed his jaw, the stubble he hadn't yet had a chance to shave prickly against his palm.

"I know, Mother. I know."


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N: I'm so incredibly sorry this chapter took so long to come out. I've been flat-out exhausted by real life these past couple of weeks. That, and I was hit by a case of panic when I saw all the "Vice" fics pop up recently. If you're interested, I'll have a lengthier explanation at the end of the chapter. Feel free to totally ignore it otherwise._

_I wish I could say that the next update will come quickly, but I'm actually heading out to China tonight on a red-eye flight, and I'll be gone for about ten days. The good news is that the class I'm teaching is only going to be five days long (an intensive course, of sorts). Unfortunately, that means I'm not going to have much time to write in the coming week either. Things should settle down after I return, but until then, all I can offer up are my heartfelt apologies and my immeasurable gratitude for all the support you've given me for this story._

_(FYI, this chapter is kind of rough because I've been working my butt off to get this finished before I fly out. I'm literally typing out this author's note one hour before my flight leaves. I'll try to do more edits when I get back. Thanks for understanding!)_

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

* * *

Kate smiled when she saw Alexis staring with wide eyes at all the growing crowd filing in and milling about the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Families, young teenagers, and lovers dotted the rink with bright coats and laughter as some glided with enviable grace and others stumbled every few feet on the ice. Holiday classics crooning from speakers situated all around the rink, and everything in the air swelled with good cheer.

Kate breathed in the biting cold air with relish. She loved this. The slight burn in her lungs refreshed her and reminded her of better times when she and her parents would spend Thanksgiving weekend hunting for the perfect tree out in the woods. Her parents were both lawyers, so they'd both been incredibly busy, but ever since Kate could remember, the winter holidays had always belonged to them as a family.

Kate was grateful that nothing, not even the heart-wrenching anguish of her mother's murder could taint the purity of her memories.

The first time she went ice-skating was with her mother the December before she was murdered, but Kate continued to go every year after that. It reminded her that her mother should not be remembered with only pain and anger, but with joy and gratitude that Kate had those nineteen years to spend being loved by her mother, no matter how aggravating a younger Katie Beckett must have been to both her parents.

When she'd still been with Will, ice-skating had been one of the rare things that she'd been willing to share with him in regards to her mother. Even after they'd broken up, the wind whipping her hair back and stinging her cheeks as she glided mindlessly about had remained her freedom. Nothing could defile it, not the stain of her mother's case nor the heartbreak of knowing that Will's priorities did not lie with her.

This, maybe more than anything else, was the most innocent part of her, and she was excited to share it with Alexis.

Alexis pointed a red-gloved hand at the skaters and asked, "We're gonna do that?"

Kate nodded as she helped lace up Alexis' rented skates before pulling out her own pair, secretly delighting in Alexis' reaction when the girl saw her neon green skates. Blue eyes widened comically even as Alexis tried to hide her delighted giggle.

Kate knelt down before the girl and tucked a lock of her bright shock of orange hair back underneath her pink, wool beanie. "I'm gonna stick with you the whole time, but just in case we do get separated, now you know you'll be able to easily find me by my skates. Okay?"

A slow smile spread across Alexis' face as she nodded enthusiastically. "'Kay!"

"So, has your dad ever brought you ice skating?" Kate asked as she stood and put their belongings into their locker.

"Unh-unh," Alexis responded with a shake of her head.

"No problem. We'll take this slow."

Kate held out her hand for Alexis to take. "Ready?"

Alexis looked at the ice rink apprehensively, but then she straightened her shoulders and nodded decisively. "Ready."

Kate hid a smile at the sight of her determination. Alexis was obviously nervous about going out on the ice, but she faced down her fear with what Kate hoped would be the same dogged determination the little girl would demonstrate throughout her life.

Kate hoped she'd get to see it when Alexis took the world by storm one of these days.

"Let's go then."

…

Ice skating was quickly becoming Alexis' new favorite thing.

She'd been afraid when she first stepped onto the ice, and she'd clung on tightly to Kate's hand. Kate turned and and skated backwards slowly as she guided Alexis along the wall until they were several yards away from the opening.

Alexis was amazed to see how graceful Kate was on the ice; she looked like a fairy princess. Not once did Alexis get scared that Kate was going to let her go or fall over.

Kate taught her how to push the edge of her skate into the surface so that she could push off and slide across the ice with each step. She almost fell several times, but Kate's grip on her hands never loosened.

"You doing okay, Alexis? How's it feel to be on the ice?"

Alexis sank her baby teeth into her bottom lip in a look of intense concentration as she focused on maintaining her balance. "I feel wobbly."

Kate smiled at that. "It's normal to feel wobbly at first. You're already doing better than I did the first time I went ice skating."

Alexis' eyes lit up in slight disbelief. She couldn't imagine Kate to be anything less than completely graceful. "Really?"

"Mmhm. I was nineteen years old the first time I went with my mom, and I fell so many times that I was bruised all over." Kate caught the little furrow of worry between Alexis' brow and correctly concluded that she was worried that if Kate couldn't do it the first time, then how could she? "You wanna know a secret?"

Alexis nodded vigorously.

"It's harder for big people to learn new things than it is for kids. In fact, you're probably at the perfect age to start learning whatever you want."

"Really?"

"Yup. Don't believe me?" she asked when she saw Alexis give her a skeptical look.

"No."

Kate grinned. "Look down. You've been skating without my help."

Alexis glanced and realized to her alarm that Kate wasn't holding her hands anymore and that Alexis really was skating all by herself. In her excitement, she stumbled over her next step and her heart thumped loudly when she saw the ice coming up to meet her. Just when she slammed her eyes shut before hitting the ice, two strong hands hooked under her armpits and dragged her back you into a standing position.

Alexis blinked her eyes open slowly to meet Kate's warm gaze.

"Don't worry. I gotcha."

Alexis nodded slowly. "Thank you."

"No problem. But do you believe me now about kids learning faster than adults? You skated almost all the way around the rink without my help. It took me almost a whole hour before I could do that the first time I went ice skating."

"I skated all by myself? I skated all by myself!" Alexis exclaimed, the realization coming a little belatedly.

Kate nodded. "That you did. Ready to try again?"

Alexis beamed with excitement. "Yes!"

…

"Kate, do you have a mommy?"

Kate and Alexis stayed on the ice for another hour, and she was surprised that Alexis had lasted as long as that. Of course, towards the end of the hour, it hadn't really been Alexis ice skating so much as it had been Kate pulling her along in light twirls.

Alexis giggled and shrieked and begged, "Again, again, again!" until their cheeks flushed red and their eyes were bright with laughter.

It'd been a long time since Kate had been able to just laugh so freely and _oh _she'd missed it.

After thoroughly exhausting the little girl, Kate gathered up their belongings from the locker, bought two cups of steaming hot chocolate and sat them down on a nearby bench so that they could watch the other ice skaters circling around the rink beneath the gigantic Christmas tree that stood watch over them all.

They carefully sipped their hot chocolate for a while in comfortable silence when Alexis surprised Kate with her question.

Kate swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. "I do, Alexis. But she's not with us anymore."

"Did she go to Californah like my mommy?"

"No. She went somewhere much further than that."

"Oh. Was it for her job?"

Kate choked back a hysterical laugh. Despite what the officers who'd worked her mother's case told her, Kate was almost positive that Johanna Beckett's murder had something to do with a case she'd worked on and not simply random gang violence. So in a way, it was for her job.

Not that Kate was going to go into any details about that at all.

"Sort of. Why do you ask?"

"Did the scary man take her away? 'Cause sometimes I have dreams about the scary man taking away Daddy or Gram or you."

Oh jeez. This conversation was so out of Kate's league.

She chewed on her inner cheek for a while, trying to find the right words. "Is that what you dream about? Why you have a hard time sleeping sometimes?"

Alexis hesitated, then nodded solemnly. "The scary man comes."

The cop in Kate awakened, and she wondered whether this scary man was truly a result of Alexis' separation anxiety issues, or if it was something more sinister. She made a note to ask Castle about it later when she had the chance.

At the risk of bringing Alexis' boogey man into the light of day and scaring her, Kate asked, "What does this scary man look like?"

Alexis shrugged. "Don't know. Don't ever see his face. Just…a bad man."

Kate could tell that Alexis was getting agitated and that she wasn't likely to get any more answers, so she decided to change the subject.

"So what do you usually do for fun with your dad?"

Alexis' eyes lit up as she began chattering excitedly about daily trips to the park, weekly excursions to the museum, and how they converted the loft into a giant pillow fort for movie nights.

Kate breathed a mental sigh of relief.

Crisis averted. For now.

She _really _needed to talk with Castle.

…

When Rick came into the precinct on Monday, the last thing he'd expected was for Beckett to drag him into the break room.

The last he'd seen her was yesterday when she'd dropped off Alexis back at the loft. They hadn't had a chance to talk about the outing because Beckett had to get back to the station to clock in for her half-day, but Alexis had been in a noticeably better mood. She also wouldn't stop talking about Beckett's neon skates, something that Rick wished he'd been able to see firsthand.

Beckett didn't really strike him as a neon skates kind of girl, but he was finding again and again that the Vice detective was a real life matryoshka doll—every time he thought there couldn't be any more layers, out popped another doll.

"Whoa, hey, I know I'm kind of irresistible, but I think the storage closet would be a better bet for non-discovery if you want to ravish me," Rick said with a grin.

Beckett just glared at him.

"Or not," he amended. "What's going on?"

Beckett glanced around uncomfortably and when she seemed satisfied that there was no one around to eavesdrop on their conversation, she said, "I have a question about Alexis."

Rick sobered immediately. "What about Alexis? Did something happen? Is she okay?"

Beckett's hands shot out in a mollifying gesture. "Calm down, nothing happened. I was just—look, Alexis told me about some of her dreams that you mentioned. You know, from the whole separation anxiety thing. Now, maybe I'm just being overly sensitive because I'm a cop, but something she said yesterday raised a bit of a red flag."

"What? What did she say?"

"She said she dreams that a scary man takes away you or her grandmother or m—" she cut herself off, but before he could ask her about it, she'd already moved on. "Has she ever mentioned this 'scary man' to you?"

"Well, yeah, she's mentioned him before. I thought it was just a figment of her imagination. Why?" He stilled. "Wait, are you saying that this person might be real?"

Panic suffused him at the thought, even as his mind raced through any potential stalkers. He rarely left Alexis alone, and if he did, she was either with his mother or in her art class. He couldn't think of anyone who'd been acting creepy around her off the top of his head, but it didn't mean that there wasn't.

"Calm down, Castle. I'm not saying that there _is_ for sure. I just wanted to touch bases and ask if you knew anything that I should be on the lookout for."

"Not that I know of, but it might just be that I wasn't paying enough attention. Christ, what if there really is someone who's been scaring her and I didn't even know? What kind of father am I? Jeez, Beckett, I thought the mall had been a one-time thing—that I'm usually not that careless with Alexis, but what if I actually am and all this time I hadn't realized that there was some creeper hanging around her?"

"Castle, stop that right now," she commanded sternly. "I didn't bring this up for you to freak out on me, okay?"

"How can I not freak out? This is my _daughter_ we're talking about here."

"I know, but letting your writer's imagination get the better of you isn't going to help anything! I've seen the way you interact with Alexis, and you're a great dad."

Rick swung his gaze to her eyes, and she stared back at him unflinchingly. He was painfully aware that Beckett's first impression of him had been as a careless parent, and he hadn't realized until now how very insecure he'd been about that. He'd never needed outside validation about his relationship with Alexis before, but Beckett—

Beckett's opinion mattered.

And it knocked the wind straight out of him to know that she thought he was a _great dad_.

He wet his lips, his eloquent writer's words deserting him in the face of overwhelming gratitude.

Beckett's gaze dipped to the quick flick of his tongue against his mouth, and she unconsciously mimicked the gesture, the light pink of her tongue drawing his eyes like a magnet.

Just like that, a flood of hot want surged through his veins and lit his body on fire. Her eyes lingered for a beat longer on his lips, then they slowly crawled up past the bridge of his nose. When their gazes locked, the dark pools of her pupils had nearly completely eaten the hazel rims of her irises.

Pulses of electricity arced between them and dragged along his skin like a palpable touch.

His mouth parted when he abruptly realized that _Beckett wanted him_.

"Castle…" she whispered, but he couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a warning or an encouragement.

He distantly noticed that he'd closed the gap between them until he was standing so close to her that he could feel the warmth of body calling out to him past the layers of their clothes.

He watched in fascination as her eyes fluttered shut, those thick, long lashes just barely brushing the soft skin of her cheeks. Then he was leaning down—or she was pushing up, he didn't know. All he knew was the thundering beat of his heart against his ribcage and the riot of flurries in his stomach as his own eyes slid shut and he could feel the hot puff of her breath against his lips and—

"Beckett."

They jumped apart when the voice sliced through the thick cloud of electricity that crackled around them and jarred them back to reality.

Rick's eyes startled open just in time to see Beckett take a giant step back, her eyes stretched wide in alarm and, if he wasn't mistaken, just the faintest traces of frustrated desire.

Well, at least he wasn't the only one.

Detective Evans appeared in the doorway of the break room, blinking rapidly a couple of times, then gifted them with a raised brow.

_So close_, Rick lamented even as he swept a hand down the front of his shirt in an effort to collect himself.

Beckett sucked in a steadying breath, trying and somewhat failing at nonchalance, and she brushed a hand through her hair. Rick was gratified to see that her hand shook the slightest bit because his whole body felt like it had been hooked up to a live wire.

Beckett cleared her throat. "Yeah?"

Evans' lips twitched at the corner, but Rick gave him credit for holding back the smirk. "Karpowski from Homicide is on the horn for you. About the kid in the boat case."

"Right. Got it."

Beckett dusted the invisible wrinkles from her blue blouse and walked out of the break room without even a glance at Rick.

When Rick made to follow, Evans stepped in his path.

For all that Rick was a man of words and not so much of action, he'd been blessed with a tall frame and he worked out just enough to hang a solid build on those bones. Sure, his waistline was a tad thicker than it had been even a few years ago, but overall Rick thought that he could hold his own in a bar fight, if it ever came down to it.

But even though Evans was physically smaller (and not by much), it was obvious to Rick that Evans would bury him—both figuratively and literally.

"Castle."

Rick swallowed. "Detective Evans. What can I do for you?"

"You're looking quite cozy there with Beckett there," Evans commented, voice deceptively casual.

"Just…talking."

"Uh huh. And was it _serious _talking...or just _casual_ talking?"

Rick furrowed his brows in confusion. He was pretty sure there was some hidden meaning here that he was missing, but if his daughter didn't fall under the serious category, he wasn't sure what did.

"Uh, serious?"

"You don't sound very sure," Evans pointed out with faux nonchalance. Rick got the distinct feeling that the stocky detective knew some interesting hiding places for dead bodies. "Just know that I've been looking out for Beckett ever since she started here. An' I don't like punks who mess around with her, you got that?"

Mess around with her? Rick wasn't shadowing her to mess around with her, though she might disagree.

Oh wait.

Did he—?

Oh. _Oh_.

Evans thought that Rick was pursuing Beckett?

He wasn't—

Huh. Actually, he kind of was, wasn't he?

Rick swallowed and finally replied, "Got it."

Evans stared him down. "Good."

…

"What's wrong with you?" asked Beckett when Rick plopped himself down in the chair he'd pulled up next to her desk and claimed as his.

_Oh nothing much. Just getting threatened by a detective who looks like he could break my back and throw my body into the Hudson without the slightest remorse._

"Nothing."

"Uh-huh." She quirked an eyebrow at him, but dropped the topic. Her attention went straight back to studying the police report sitting in front of her as she proceeded to thoroughly ignore him.

It miffed him a little to see that Beckett seemed completely unaffected by what had almost happened in the break room, especially considering the fact that he was still in a state of semi-shock.

He wasn't sure if he'd expected that they would talk about it, but apparently she'd already made the decision to ignore it.

Okay. He could do that.

For now.

He leaned over to glance at the file she was perusing. "So what was the call about?"

Surprisingly, she answered without rolling her eyes or brushing him off with snark.

_Progress_, he thought.

"I've been working with one of the officers at Homicide about a shooting in Central Park, and the perp is a dealer that I booked recently."

"Hmm…."

"What, Castle?" she said flatly.

"Karpowski is sure that this Scoville guy is your murderer?"

"Yeah." Beckett dragged out the word, suspicion heavy in her tones. "What are you getting at, Castle?"

"The story doesn't make sense."

"What about a dealer shooting a kid because he owed him money doesn't make sense? Makes a lot of sense to me."

"That part maybe, but not this. Look at this. It says here that Donny Kendall's friends were all there when Scoville shot Donny for the two hundred dollars that he owed him."

"So?"

"_So_…Donny and his friends went to Redding Prep. No kid goes to Redding without at least a couple of extra zeros at the end of their parents' paycheck. I bet that each of these kids had at least two hundred dollars in their wallets, if not in cold cash, then in a watch or a purse or hell, even an iPod. Yet not _one_ of them thought to front him the money? _That_ makes no sense."

Beckett narrowed her eyes at him, but instead of blasting him like he was half-expecting, she muttered a soft _damn_ under her breath. "I thought something didn't add up."

"Wait, you didn't think Scoville was the right guy either? Then what was that—" he gestured wildly with his hands in reference to how she'd looked at him like an idiot "—all about about?"

"Playing the devil's advocate, Castle. You should know all about it. After all, you seem to enjoy being contrary just for the hell of it."

"You know, it's really incredibly hot to hear you say things like that."

Ah, there was her patented eye-roll.

"Move." She pushed him aside lightly as she reached for her desk phone. "I need to call Karpowski. Good thing she's not too touchy about other cops' input on her cases."

The next couple of hours unfolded in a chaotic ride of ups and downs as their primary suspect shifted from one "friend" to the next, but when they finally slapped the cuffs on Brandon Jacobs and tripped him up enough that he made an admission against interest, adrenaline and satisfaction had Rick running higher than anything else he'd ever experienced, the notable exceptions being holding baby Alexis in his hands for the first time, the publication of his first book, and making the New York Times Bestseller list.

This was _incredible_.

It didn't hurt that Beckett had actually given him an approving smile as she said goodbye to him after the case was over, but he realized abruptly that he wanted to shadow her not necessarily just because of her, but for more of _this._

It wasn't just about getting under Beckett's skin or trying to find a way to make running away from him impossible.

He wanted more of this, the rush of chasing down leads and solving a mystery. He wanted the thrill of outsmarting a criminal and putting him behind bars.

He wanted the fulfillment of knowing that he was doing something worthwhile with his life—that he was bringing closure to a victim's loved ones.

Rick Castle was a greedy man, but this—this was worth being greedy about.

* * *

_A/N: Like I mentioned above, this author's note is completely extraneous and totally ignore-able. If you want to read about my life however, have at it. :)_

_Real life has been crazy. In the past month, I've gone from part-time student to officially unemployed; I've moved out of my apartment in LA to move back home to Norcal. Most of all, my nephew has kicked my butt (both literally and metaphorically)._

_No joke, the past few weeks have made me appreciate how much work it takes to be a stay-at-home moms so freakin' much. My sister and two-year-old nephew are visiting from Japan and yeah, my sister is a homemaker. She's also pregnant with her second child and constantly exhausted because it takes so much work for her to look after the energizer bunny that is my nephew. Seriously, a nine-year-old on a sugar high has _nothing _on that kid. There's four adults in my house and we're all completely worn out by the end of the day because it takes so much to keep my nephew busy. I mean, I love him to bits, but he just never stops! Lol. _

_So yeah, for the last weeks, I've been kept busy by my sister and my nephew from 7 am to when he sleeps at 9 pm and after that, I'm so exhausted that I can't even bring myself to use my brain in any greater capacity than mind-numbing television and games on my phone._

_Then, somewhere in the middle of my impromptu lesson on "How to Handle a Two-Year-Old from Hell" (jkjk...I love him. I really do), I saw all these "Vice" fics popping up recently. _

_I'll admit that I was actually really intimidated because dude, chezchuckles and Sandiane Carter and a number of others have written/are writing their version and hello? Need I say more about the quality of their work? In fact, I think my heart literally skipped a beat when I saw chezchuckles' Vice story pop up in the archive. And then I saw that Sandiane Carter was going to write a version too and then I was just like equal parts I'm-so-freakin'-excited-because-their-stories-are-going-to-be-the-best-things-ever and holy-smokes-my-story-is-so-inferior. Lol. _

_In any case, after wallowing in my inferiority for a while, I realized that I can't spend my writing "career" comparing my stories to those of others or else I'll be perpetually living in a well of misery because of how superior their writing is to mine (whether true or perceived or both). I needed to remind myself that I have this group of incredible readers who have somehow found something to like in my stories, and I owe it to everyone who's been such an amazing source of support to me to keeping updating this. _

_Besides, our stories are completely different beasts and the joy of fanfiction is that there can be so many spins on a similar idea._

_I hope you'll all forgive me for my moment of self-doubt which led, in part, to this extended delay. Thank you._


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N: I'm continually blown away and completely humbled by the responses I've received for this story. You are the most gracious readers a writer could ever ask for, and I thank you so much for the encouragement you all have sent me, especially regarding my author's note from the last chapter. Thank you for putting up with me, and thank you so much for reading my little offering to this amazing fandom. Thank you._

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

* * *

"Lanie, what the hell am I doing?"

Kate tossed out the question as soon as she pushed through the double doors to her friend's domain. The detective jumped up onto one of the autopsy tables and wondered if it was bad that she was down here so often—either for a case or for a little girl-time—that she felt more comfortable sitting on this cold metal slab than she did on a park bench.

Lanie didn't bother looking up from the report she was in the process of filling out. "You're taking up space in my morgue is what you're doing. Just so you know, if I ever find you actually dead on one of my tables, I'll bring you back to life then kill you myself."

"Lanie…"

"What? If you're looking for sympathy about your little situation with Writer Boy, you're barking up the wrong tree. My position is very clear on that: just grab the guy and have some fun because, let me tell you girlfriend, you could use some fun_._" Lanie glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. "Aren't you supposed to be over at his place for dinner in, oh, about twenty minutes?"

"Yes."

"Then what the hell are you doing in my morgue?"

"Having a panic attack. Can't you tell?" Kate replied dryly.

"No, no, sweetie. What you're having is not a panic attack. What you're having is an attack of stupid_._" Kate narrowed her eyes at the ME for that, but Lanie was made of tougher stuff. "If you don't want to hear the truth, then you shouldn't'a come looking for me."

Kate growled and raked her hands through her hair. Lanie was right, of course. Kate came to Lanie because she needed a voice of reason. However, Kate had forgotten that Lanie's brand of reason came with no holds barred and tended to pummel her with what she didn't particularly want to hear.

"I don't even know why you're freaking out," Lanie continued, still not bothering to look up from her paperwork. Kate wasn't offended. Lanie's ability to multitask was impressive. "It's not like the guy asked you to elope and play house. It's just dinner, for God's sake. The attachment thing with the daughter is a little weird, I'll give you that, but you're the one who claimed to be more interested in the kid anyway, so I don't get why you'd have a problem with that."

"I don't have a problem with that."

Lanie glanced up to gift Kate with the rise of a shapely brow.

"Okay, so maybe I have a problem with that," Kate amended.

"What's wrong with the kid?"

"_Nothing's_ wrong with Alexis! I just—I don't know how to keep my distance with Castle while still spending time with Alexis. Especially after Monday's incident."

"Mm, oh yeah, Monday's incident. The way you told it, I _wish _I had myself some yum-yum like that. I bet he's a helluva smoocher. And good at a helluva lot of other things too," Lanie said with a lascivious grin.

Kate, against her better judgment, hadn't been able to keep herself from spilling everything to Lanie after her shift ended on Monday.

Kate's nerves were still rubbed raw and the spike of adrenaline she'd ridden wasn't even completely due to the almost-kiss in the break room. Strangely enough, Kate had been more thrown off by their theory-building during the Scoville case than by the spectacular shower of fireworks that sparked every time they held contact for too long. Somehow, the natural give-and-take of their two minds coming together to challenge and push each other to think deeper, smarter, sharper felt more intimate than the ridiculous physical attraction pulsing between them.

Kate had been smart enough not to tell Lanie about the strange _connection_ she felt on an almost…_spiritual? _level with Castle, but she hadn't been able to not tell her about the thing in the break room. Kate had never felt more like a teenage girl with a crush before, not even when she'd actually _been _a teenage girl.

Not that she was saying that she had a crush on Castle. Totally not.

Lanie sighed when she saw that Kate looked more frazzled than before. "Honey, don't you think you're thinking a little too hard about all of this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Sweetie, you act like he's dropping on one knee when it's _just a dinner_. Damn girl, he's not even asking you out. Could you two become more? I sure as hell hope so, but that's not what this is about. He has a daughter. His daughter likes you. You like his daughter. As of right now, that's all that's goin' on. So why make this a bigger deal than it is? Just head on over like you're meeting friends for dinner, which, I might add, is what you keep claiming that that's all this is. You'll have plenty of time to freak out when they're in California."

Kate rubbed her hands up and down over her face and sighed. "You're right. Yeah, of course you're right. I'm overthinking. It's just dinner."

_Dinner at Castle's loft, _her mind oh-so-helpfully reminded her.

She pressed it down as best as she could. Lanie was right. Her logic made sense. Kate was making mountains—hell, she was yanking the freakin' Himalayas—out of molehills.

Kate was being ridiculous.

So what if she and Castle had some unexplainable magnetism between them? So what if their thought processes complemented each other's to the point of uncanny synchronicity? It didn't mean anything.

Lanie rolled her eyes. "Get out of my morgue, woman." Kate complied with a narrow-eyed look, and Lanie added, "Oh, and on the off-off-off chance that something _does _happen, I want all the dirty details."

Kate didn't bother to glance back as the doors swung shut behind her.

"Shuuuuut uuuup!"

…

Rick Castle was nervous.

Rick Castle didn't get nervous.

Not for dates and _certainly_ not for dinners that weren't dates.

He was being ridiculous and he knew it.

It was just dinner with a sort of friend whom he'd almost kissed and on whom he had a kind of crush. No big deal.

His famous pasta carbonara was seasoned to perfection and the wafting aroma of garlic bread toasting in the oven filled the loft. It wasn't anything special, but Castle got the feeling that Beckett wasn't the kind of the girl that would be impressed by fancy china and warm candlelight. It wasn't that she wasn't a romantic; it was more that she wouldn't be so easily impressed by the supposed trappings of romance.

Not that he was trying to romance her.

"Daddy, are you nervous?"

Rick's head popped up from the salad he'd been tossing to see bright, inquisitive eyes watching him curiously.

Alexis had her elbows propped on the kitchen island and even though he couldn't see it from the other side of the island, he could imagine her little legs kicking merrily in the air as she perched on the stool. Her head cocked to the side in a look that was way too knowing for a four-year-old.

"Nervous? I'm not _nervous_!" he blustered.

Never mind that he'd been trying in vain to convince himself of that for the past two hours.

And how did Alexis even know what that word meant? Alexis was smart, yes, and incredibly mature for her age, and she never failed to astonish him with her aptitude.

For all that he joked about her first word being _denouement, _the truth was that he'd been an embarrassing, sobbing mess the first time she'd looked at him as a ten-month old, pointed a chubby finger at him and gurgled out a delighted "Da-Da!"

Maybe it made him a bad person, but Rick had been grateful—so very, _very_ grateful—that the first word he could tell that she clearly knew what she was saying had been _his_ title and not Meredith's.

But abstract emotions should still be a little beyond her ken, right?"

It's been like ten _whole _minutes, Daddy, and you're still mixing the salad," Alexis said with just the slightest bit of a whine.

Rick glanced up at the digital clock on the microwave display and was startled to see that Alexis was right.

Then he turned back to his daughter just in time to catch her little fingers playing restlessly with the ends of the pigtails hanging from either side of her head. (He was secure enough in his masculinity to take pride in the fact that his hairstyling skills were improving every day.)

"Alexis, are _you _nervous?"

His daughter pulled her lips to one side and her brows furrowed as she considered her answer. "A little?"

"Why're you nervous?" he asked, his tone equal parts surprise and curiosity. After all, every time before this, Alexis had been a ball of barely contained excitement whenever the possibility of hanging out with Kate arose. That she was edgy this time was somewhat disconcerting.

And maybe hearing why Alexis was anxious would help him figure out what to do about his own unsteady nerves.

"I dunno," she said with a shrug of her thin shoulders.

Ah, well. That's what he got for relying on his four-year-old daughter to be the voice of reason in the house (something that happened far more often than he liked to admit).

But then Alexis wasn't quite finished.

"Seems 'mportant, I guess," she murmured a little shyly.

Her words were a light bulb in his head.

It made sense.

Tonight was _important._

It wasn't supposed to be, but it _was_ because how tonight went down could end up dictating how their relationship with the wary detective would unfold.

Rick desperately wanted Beckett to come back, but he was terrified that he was going to screw this up so that she wouldn't.

He didn't want that to happen for his and Alexis' sake, but he also sensed that they were good for Beckett.

Or well…at least _Alexis_ was good for Beckett. Beckett needed some innocence in her life, some ray of sunshine to dispel the evils inherent in the things she encountered daily in her job.

And Alexis was the biggest drop of light there could be.

Unfortunately, knowing the reason why he was so jittery didn't quite help with controlling it. Instead, he found himself unnaturally freaking out.

Rick didn't have much more time to flounder in insecurity however because the doorbell rang and when he opened the door, Beckett was standing right there with a tentative smile.

Surprisingly, that flicker of shy hesitance helped Rick find his ground. None of them knew quite what to expect and that put all three of them on equal footing.

"Hey, Beckett. Thanks for coming."

She tucked a lock of chestnut hair behind her ear in a gesture he was beginning to recognize as a subconscious nervous habit. "Yeah, uh, thanks for inviting me."

"Kate!" greeted Alexis happily even as she carefully made her way down from the elevated stool.

Beckett's tense hesitance melted into a genuine smile. "Hey kiddo. You excited to see your mom tomorrow?"

"Yes! But I'm sad I won't get to see you for so long."

Beckett chuckled. "It's not gonna be that long. Just a week."

"But that seems like _forever_."

"I'm sure it seems like that now, but it'll pass by real quickly. Trust me."

Alexis scrunched her brows together skeptically. "If you say so…"

"I do say so." Beckett bit her lip, then said, "Here, if it helps and it's okay with your dad, you can call me whenever you want. I might not always answer because I'll be working, but I'll be sure to give you a call back if I hear from you. How's that?"

Rick stared at Beckett in surprise and noted that Beckett looked just as surprise that the offer had come out of her mouth. This was way above and beyond anything he could have asked of her, but _oh _the effervescent joy and shy hopefulness that shimmered out of his daughter's eyes was nothing less than magical.

And _Beckett_ was the one who put it there.

If Rick wasn't so grateful, he might have been jealous.

"Castle," Beckett prompted at the same time as Alexis whined out, "_Dad_."

It was only then that he realized that he'd been staring. Again.

"What?"

Alexis rolled her eyes, and Rick blinked rapidly when Beckett did the same thing behind her. That was…kind of freaky. And he wasn't sure how he felt about his daughter ganging up with Beckett against him.

"So is't okay for me to call Kate?"

"Uh, yeah. I mean, if she's okay with it. And not all the time. We don't want to bother her, pumpkin."

Beckett quirked an eyebrow at him for that. "Oh yeah. Can't have people bothering me at work all the time, now can we?"

"Hey now, that's different. That's _research_," he protested, affronted.

"Sure it is." Beckett turned to Alexis. "Don't worry about it. Big Castle is the one who likes to get in the way. Little Castle is always a pleasure."

Alexis grinned that thousand-watt beam, and Rick couldn't even find it in himself to keep up the affronted façade.

Still, Rick couldn't let the two ladies band up like this without _some _retribution. "You wouldn't say that if you were the one who had to wrestle with her during bath times when she was two."

"_Daddy_," Alexis exclaimed, her cheeks flaring bright red.

"What?" he blinked innocently. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's just Kate, right?"

Alexis narrowed her eyes at him in another expression that was startling reminiscent of a certain Vice detective, and Rick turned to hassle Beckett about how she was turning his daughter into a mini-her, but he paused when he saw an inscrutable look pass across her face.

What had he said to make her look like _that_?

It wasn't like he'd just confessed his undying love for her, not that there was any undying love to be confessed.

He just—

Oh wait.

_It's just Kate_.

He'd said it like her presence was a given. Like there was nothing to hide from her. Like she was…family.

Huh.

Was this something he should be feeling all panicky about also? Because the truth was that he felt nothing of the sort.

Instead, even now, all he felt was…normal. Like it really _was _nothing out of the ordinary.

There was one of two ways he could handle this. He could backtrack, try to explain himself, and generally make a bigger mess of things….

Or he could just go with it and ignore the carefully blanked look on Beckett's face.

After all, a part of him, maybe even a large part of him, really did want this to be normal for them.

Better to just start off how he meant to go on, then.

"So," he clapped his hands together, "who's ready for dinner?"


	17. Chapter 17

_A/N: So...I don't have a good reason for why this chapter took so long to come out other than the sad truth that I just couldn't seem to get it written. Seriously, the Word document for this is open on my computer ALL the time; sometimes I manage to add a line or two at a time, others I just sit there staring at the cursor blinking mockingly at me. I wish I could figure out how to write faster and more consistently like other writers do, and I can only offer up my most sincere apologies for the fact that I'm not there yet._

_Thanks for hanging in there with me, and while I can give no guarantees as to when the next chapter will be out, I am so very grateful to have such gracious readers, many of whom have given me so much encouragement and understanding in your reviews. Know that you guys are the reason I make the effort to battle every day to get this story written._

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

* * *

"Oh my gosh, Castle, I hate to feed your oversized ego, but this is amazing!" Kate gushed between bites of succulent guanciale, the rich flavors of the Italian bacon enhanced by the masterfully seasoned egg and cheese sauce.

Castle grinned widely, but Kate couldn't find it in her to bring him down a notch because, _damn, _anyone who can cook like this deserves to be proud.

"I don't know how you're not both swollen up like balloons if you eat as good as this every day."

To her surprise, the tips of Castle's ears reddened just a hint. "Ah, yes, well, the cooking is a recent development."

Kate paused in her brief moment of gluttony and looked at him askance. "Oh?"

Alexis jumped in to answer. "Uh-huh. We eated lots of pizza."

"We _used_ to eat a lot of pizza," Castle corrected.

Alexis blinked at him. "That's what I said."

Kate bit down on her lips to keep back the laugh that wanted to tumble out.

Castle glared at her, but Kate just shrugged. The _your daughter _was clearly communicated even though she said nothing. Instead, she prompted, "So, pizza?"

Alexis responded cheerily. "Yup. Lots'a pizza. But Daddy said he felt pudgy so he started to cook more." The little girl shot Kate an inquisitive look. "What's wrong with being pudgy? Everyone says that Paige is so cute 'cause she's pudgy. Doesn't that mean you're cute too, Daddy?"

Kate couldn't hold back the snort of laughter. "Yeah, Castle. Even if you have a little extra donut around your waist, I'm sure your fans will still think that you're very… _cute_."

His look of total affront was equal parts ridiculously put-on and inexplicably attractive. Damn the man.

"Please, Detective. A man of my…attributes cannot simply be labeled _cute_." He spat out the word with distaste. "I'm what they call _ruggedly handsome._"

"Sure you are." Kate rolled her eyes before taking another bite of the pasta.

"And besides, I do _not _have an extra donut around my waist. In fact," Castle's voice was a low murmur and she realized with a start that he had moved close behind her seat, "you're welcome to inspect me yourself, if you'd like."

His breath ruffled the hair at her temple when he leaned over her shoulder, his fingers grazing the skin of her upper arm through the thin cotton of her shirt as he refilled her wine glass.

A wave of heat enveloped her in its all-consuming embrace, and she ruthlessly bit back the gasp that wanted out.

Oh, okay, wow. This got out of hand way too quickly.

She valiantly repressed the shiver of want that rattled through her veins, but when she saw the smug little grin spread across his face, her spine stiffened.

Oh, so _that's_ how it is, is it?

Two can play at this game.

She relaxed into the back of her chair and crossed her legs, the toe of her sock-clad foot sneaking under the hem of his pants and just barely grazing the bare skin of his shin. He jumped in his seat, and it took all of her considerable acting prowess to school her expression into one of feigned innocence.

She was proud when her voice came out light and unaffected instead of choking on laughter. "I don't know, Castle. I don't think you can handle my particular brand of…inspection."

His eyes flooded with dark, molten want, and a dangerous thrill rushed through her veins.

She was playing with fire. They both were.

And yet, she couldn't get herself to stop.

…

Alexis was falling asleep in her ice cream, but she stubbornly refused to even entertain the notion that she was tired.

"Wanna stay down here. Movie's not over yet." Alexis crossed her arms and set her jaw, her eyes drooping at the corners even as she fought to stay awake.

"Pumpkin, you've already seen _Finding Nemo _a bunch of times. You don't need to stay up to finish it tonight."

"But I've never seen it with Kate before! I wanna stay down here!" She stubbornly set her eyes on the television and refused to look at him. It was a sure sign that she knew she was doing the wrong thing and hanging onto the barest threads of bravado to get her through it.

Rick shot Beckett an apologetic glance, but she surprised him when she quirked a laughing eyebrow at him.

He heaved a great mental sigh. Of course she would be amused by his parenting mishaps.

He didn't have to bust it out often because Alexis was usually such a well-behaved child, but it looked like he was going to have to go full-on Dad-mode here. He modulated his tone so that it was both authoritative and gentle as he tilted Alexis' chin up so that she looked into his eyes.

"Alexis, you're beyond tired. You've entered the land of cranky, and I don't think Kate wants to see you when you're all cranky."

Manipulative? Maybe, but he'd learned long ago that it was sometimes easier to take the sly route than to make outright demands. The trick was to make it seem like it was something that Alexis herself wanted to do, not what he wanted her to do.

By the way Alexis' brow furrowed and her lips turned down in a frown, Rick could tell that it was working this time too.

"But then tomorrow we leave for Californah and then I won't get to see Kate for a whole week!"

Angelic blue eyes brimmed with watery tears and the girl's pouty lips quivered. Rick felt his resolve crumbling despite himself.

"Alexis, this isn't the last chance you'll get to watch a movie with me," Beckett consoled. "It's really sweet that you want to spend more time with me, and I'm happy that you do. But it's past your bedtime and you're not listening to your daddy, and that makes him sad when you don't listen because he just wants what's best for you. And you don't want to make Daddy sad, right?"

Alexis stared between her and Rick with huge, shocked eyes, as if the concept of making Daddy sad was unbearable for her.

"Don't wanna make Daddy sad," she sniffled.

Oh, his sweet, sweet girl.

"I know, sweetheart. So let's get you to bed now, and when you come back next week, we'll watch the _whole_ movie together again. Okay?"

Alexis' lower lip trembled as the internal battle for what was right and what she wanted waged. Rick and Beckett waited patiently for her to come to her decision, and they both breathed a mental sigh of relief when the little girl scooted her butt to the edge of the sofa before slipping off.

Alexis shuffled over to Rick, and when he crouched down to meet her height, she threw her thin arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "I'm sorry for making you sad, Papa."

Rick's heart melted. Alexis only ever called him Papa when she was really tired or feeling vulnerable, and he felt his eyes tear up with the knowledge that as much as Alexis was growing up way too quickly for him to handle, she will always be his little girl.

He nuzzled against the crown of her head. "It's okay, pumpkin. I know you're just tired and in a bad mood because of that. Thank you for listening to Daddy and to Kate."

Alexis untangled herself from him and launched herself at Beckett next. "Sorry for being cranky."

"It's okay. I get cranky when I don't get enough sleep too."

"Or coffee," Rick added under his breath. The sharp look Beckett shot him told him that his comment didn't go unheard. He just grinned at her. Out loud, he addressed Alexis, "Ready to go to bed then?"

Alexis nodded, her timid "yes" muffled by the curtain of Beckett's hair.

"I'll see you soon, kiddo, and remember you can call me whenever you want," Beckett soothed, a slender hand rubbing up and down Alexis' small back.

Alexis nodded again before finally pulling back. "Night, Kate."

She planted a loud kiss on Beckett's cheek, and Rick chuckled at the stupefied look on the detective's face.

Yeah, Alexis had that kind of effect on people.

"Goodnight," Beckett called out belatedly as Rick took Alexis upstairs.

She made to gather up her coat and boots to make her exit, but Rick stopped her. "Stay. Just for a little while."

She frowned. "Castle…"

"Please. No funny business. Promise. Just to talk."

He tried out his puppy dog face on her—hey, Alexis' seemed to be quite effective, and Alexis got it from him, right?—and found to his surprise that it worked.

She nodded. "Just for a little bit."

…

Kate settled herself back into the welcoming cloud of cushions that was Castle's couch and wondered just what the hell she was doing.

Every time she took a step back to get some perspective, she ended up sliding another ten feet further into Castle's world. It was like she didn't know how to stay away—so much so that she was beginning to wonder why she bothered to maintain her distance at all.

And _that_ kind of thinking was just dangerous.

Kate was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice that Castle had come back downstairs until he plopped down next to her on the other end of the couch.

"That was fast," she commented, glancing at the wall clock. It had only been about fifteen minutes since the father-daughter duo had gone upstairs.

"Yeah. Alexis was exhausted. She was just being stubborn about wanting to stay up. That was pretty impressive, by the way. How you handled her earlier, I mean."

Kate shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious. "I figured it's kinda like when I'm interrogating a suspect. You find the kind of logic they'd understand and then you appeal to it. For Alexis, that means not talking in abstract concepts like right or wrong, but in actual consequences. Cause and effect. She doesn't listen; that makes you sad. She loves you and doesn't want you to be sad, so that means that she should listen."

Castle flicked an eyebrow up at her. "I think I should be offended that you just compared cajoling Alexis to sleep with squeezing information from a suspect."

She rolled her eyes in return. "You know what I mean."

He grinned. "Still, not a lot of people would have known to do that. So, thanks."

She shifted a little, not comfortable with being thanked for something that she hadn't really put any thought into doing. She shied away from the subject and brought up something else. "You're wrong you know."

"'bout what?"

"I don't mind seeing Alexis when she's cranky. I think it's cute."

He stared intently at her for a long moment, and she suddenly realized that this was entirely the wrong thing to say if she wanted to take a giant step away from the Castles.

Because that look in his eyes right now? That could only be described as surprised awe that she would _want _to see his daughter in any other state other than her angelic best, and oh gosh, her stomach churned with a mix of undeniable pleasure and gut-wrenching dread.

This was just too much, and if he didn't stop looking at her like she hung the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky, she was going to do something drastic.

Like kiss him.

"Castle, please don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Like I'm this amazing person."

"You are, though." He reached up to brush back a lock of chestnut hair from her face, his fingers moving of their own accord to cradle the fine line of her jaw. "You're…extraordinary."

"Castle…"

And then his lips were on hers and everything else faded behind the starbursts of electricity sparking in her veins and lighting the world in a bright shower of fireworks.

…

Soft.

That was the first intelligible thought to cross his mind when Rick blinked open his eyes to find that he hadn't just imagined himself kissing Kate Beckett—he actually _was_.

A quick flash of panic flitted through him when he realized that, oh God, he was kissing Beckett, but it faded away just as quickly when he felt her fingers clench into the soft material of his shirt because _she was kissing him back_.

And then a small noise escaped her lips—the kind of noise that he expected she'd make when presented with a piece of decadent, silky chocolate melting on her tongue—and oh, _oh, _she was making him melt and burn with all kinds of bright fire.

He'd meant it when he asked her to stay earlier and promised no funny business, but the way she had looked at first—all genuine interest in Alexis and so totally unaware of how amazing she was herself—he couldn't resist that.

She was smart and funny and relentless in poking fun at him, but he didn't even care because she was _real_. And he hadn't met anyone real for a long time.

He hadn't been able to stop himself from leaning over and telling her with the touch of his lips how incredible he thought she was.

And _God_ was she incredible.

Warmth blazed through his veins as he traced the contours of her lips, alternating playful nips of his teeth with broad strokes of his tongue until her mouth opened and then oh!—she was _playing _with him.

He'd expected their first kiss (because who was he kidding? He'd thinking about their first kiss since the day they met) to be all passion and clashing of teeth in a wild desperation to get deeper inside of each other, but instead there's a playful quality to the meeting of their mouths—a child-like joy in the exploration of each other that went beyond mere lust.

But then her nimble fingers crawled beneath the hem of his shirt (when did it get untucked from his jeans?) and her nails raked lightly across the sensitive skin of his abdomen, his body jerking in response to the unexpected touch. His hands tightened its grip around her waist and, oh yes, _there _was the fire simmering just below the surface and ready to ignite into a blazing inferno at the slightest notice.

Her skin was so unbelievably soft against his, the undulation of her body a wicked dance enchanting him with its seduction. She tore a throaty groan from the depths of his chest when her hips brushed against his, and her name was a plea on his lips.

_"Kate_."

But then just as suddenly as the heat between them had exploded, she was pushing off of him, a sudden blast of chill air striking his bare chest where the buttons of his shirt had been undone. His eyes were slow to blink open, but when they did, he was greeted with the all too enticing vision of Beckett—Kate—raking a shaking hand through the tangled mess of her hair, her lips reddened and her face flushed. The hem of her shirt was still rolled up on one side and he noticed with some surprise that the button of her jeans had been undone.

"That was amazing."

The words tumbled out without his permission and from the way her entire body tensed up (and not in the good way), he knew that it was entirely the wrong thing to say.

"Kate—"

"Don't." She held up a hand and shaded her eyes with the other. "Just—don't say anything. Not right now."

Her voice came out huskier than usual, and oh God, that did nothing to cool him down because a thrill of male ego shot through him at the knowledge that _he'd _done that. His fingers curled into fists and his entire body coiled up tense as a springboard because she asked him to not talk and he figured she probably wouldn't appreciate it if he lost control and just kind of jumped her.

(Well, she actually might not mind right this moment, considering the state of flustered and frustrated desire she was in, but she sure as hell would hate him come morning.)

So he held himself back, and man oh man, he should get some sort of gold medal for his self-control.

Beckett started to pace and that really wasn't helping because all he could see were the swaths of smooth skin he'd uncovered, his fingertips tingling in phantom remembrance.

"Okay." Beckett stopped and spun to face him, her hands on her hips and stubborn determination written all over her face. "This is what we're going to do. I'm going to go home, and we're going to pretend this didn't happen."

"Wait, what? No."

He jumped to his feet and watched in fascination as her eyes fixated on his exposed chest, her pupils dilating and gobbling up the hazel of her irises.

Of one thing he was certain—he wasn't alone in this.

"Give me a good reason, Kate. Because I think you and I both know that what just happened was more than a kiss. You felt it too, didn't you?"

"Castle, don't. I just—I _can't_ right now."

He wanted to push. He wanted her to tell him what her holdup was, but the glint of moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes gave him pause.

There was something between them, something dangerous and volatile and alive, and more than anything, he wanted to explore it. But not at the expense of her tears.

He could be patient. He really could.

Because somehow he knew that whatever this was between them, it'd be worth the wait.

He carded his fingers through his mussed hair and buttoned his shirt with carefully controlled movements. "Okay, fine. We'll pretend this didn't happen."

Beckett's eyes widened in surprise—and just a little hurt that he'd agreed so easily.

_Come on, Beckett. Make up your mind._

She pulled herself together quickly, however, so quickly that he might have thought he'd imagined it if he hadn't been watching her so closely.

"Right. Yes. Thank you. I—I should really go home, now. Thanks for dinner."

Beckett fixed her clothes and stuffed her boots on in a hurry as she gathered up her things and nearly flew to the front door.

She'd pulled it open before he got a chance to even try at chivalry and with one last apologetic glance a mumbled goodnight, she was gone.

He closed the door when she disappeared into the elevator and pressed his forehead against the wood with a sigh.

_Don't be so grateful just yet, Beckett_, he thought.

He wasn't going to drop this for long.

* * *

_._

_._

_._

_A/N: So _that_ happened. And I had no idea that it would. Funny how that happens sometimes..._

_By the way, if you're in a non-Caskett-centric/Beckett-and-her-boys-friendship mood, check out my new collection of oneshots, **Band of Brothers. **_

_Until next time, me loverlies!_


	18. Chapter 18

_A/N: I have nothing to say except for HOLY CRAP! "Probable Cause" was amazing. No really. It was absolutely breathtaking. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for? Go hop on Hulu or something and WATCH IT NOW!_

_Okay, I'm done._

* * *

Chapter Eighteen

* * *

Kate was juggling two paper bags of groceries and digging through her pockets for her keys when her phone decided to join the party with its utterly boring and utilitarian ringtone. She should change that one of these days.

"Ah, damn it," she muttered when she dropped her keys in her quest to fish out her phone from her pocket.

Not a good day for her, apparently. Or maybe it's a sign that she should just stick with takeout, even if the Styrofoam temple in her fridge was getting one too many offerings. She refused to even entertain the notion that she'd decided to cook today because she didn't want to be outdone by Castle's talent in the kitchen. Nope. Not even a factor.

Kate gave up when she tried to shuffle her grip, only for her onions to skydive out of the bag and take a rough tumble on the hard carpeting of the hall.

She was never going grocery shopping ever again.

Ah, well, at least it was the onions and not the tomatoes.

Setting her bags on the floor, she picked up her keys, dug out her phone and squeezed it between her ear and her shoulder after she touched the answer call button.

"Beckett," she answered without looking at the caller ID, still preoccupied with wondering whether she could grab everything in one trip.

Probably not, huh?

Damn. This is why she rarely cooked. She liked to cook when she had the time, but more often than not, she didn't have the time. And even when she did have time, she had to deal with the shopping and the carrying and the putting things away…

"Uh…I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Castle? No, just—" she grunted as she heaved one of the bags onto the kitchen counter and went back for the other "—have my hands full. Grocery shopping."

"You grocery shop?"

She glared at the onion she had to retrieve from down the hall. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Er, well, I just—You seem more like a takeout kind of girl to me."

"I can cook just fine!" she protested hotly, affronted and somewhat disconcerted as she wondered whether he could see the inside of her fridge from California.

"I never said you—oh forget it. Are you too busy to talk right now?"

She froze, heart skipping a beat as the implications hit her. She'd been able to shove that kiss (oh god, it'd felt like so much more than that) into a dusty little corner of her mind all day, but now that she was on the phone with him, her memory decided to replay their encounter in vivid, heart-stopping detail.

Panicked, she hissed, "I thought we agreed to not talk about it!"

Castle was silent for a long time on the other end, and she wondered whether it was a good or bad thing that she couldn't see him right now.

"I meant Alexis, Kate. She wants to talk to you."

Oh.

_Oh_.

_Ohhh_.

Well, this wasn't awkward. At all.

She pressed a hand against her heated cheek. "Oh. Right. Of course. Yeah, um, I'd love to talk to Alexis."

She was thankful when he bailed her out.

"Look, I'm sorry for bothering you at all. Alexis has always been such a good kid, but she's been really acting up lately, and I don't even know why. And I thought the terrible twos were bad."

Kate grinned, relieved to fall back into the familiar banter and away from thoughts of sanity-depriving kisses. "Don't worry about it, Castle. Just think, you still have her teenage years to look forward to. As someone who used to be one, you have my sympathies."

"Ugh." She could see him shuddering in exaggerated form. "Oh God, I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"Basically."

He groaned on the other end of the line, and Kate chuckled a little at his melodrama.

"So what happened?"

He sighed. "It was my fault actually. I forgot to pack Monkey-Bunkey."

"That stuffed monkey she always carries around?"

"One and the same. We never go anywhere with him, but somehow I forgot to pack him. She almost brought down the plane when she went to take a nap during our flight and realized we didn't have him. She was making such a fuss that I thought, maybe I could placate her by ordering the exact same stuffed animal and have it waiting for us by the time we touched down at LAX."

"Backfired, didn't it?"

"Yep. She knew right away that it wasn't _her _Monkey-Bunkey, and the whole day has just been temper tantrum after temper tantrum. She has to have _hers, _not even one that looks exactly the same."

Kate tsked at him. "Of course not. You can't just _replace _a favorite stuffed animal, Castle. Come on. That's like 'Raising a Girl 101'."

"And _that_ sounds like the voice of experience. So do you still sleep with stuffed animals, Beckett? You know, I really wouldn't mind sharing your bed with a beloved stuffed animal. Unless it's one of those really big, human-sized ones. Then it might get crowded with all three of us."

"Castle, focus."

"I am."

"On your _daughter_."

"Oh, right. Let me go get her right now."

She shook her head in amusement, but she was actually grateful for the familiar back and forth. It meant that they were okay, that things weren't awkward. Crazy at it was, she didn't want things to be awkward between them and ruin a potential friendship, irritating as he could be.

At least he didn't say anything abo—

"Oh, and Beckett? It's nice knowing I'm not the only one who can't stop thinking about that kiss."

She could practically see his vexatious grin telegraphed across the line.

Damn the man.

…

Rick wasn't sure what Alexis and Beckett talked about—his daughter made him stand outside the room until she handed the phone back to him when she was done—but whatever it was, it sure put her in a better mood. Such a good mood, in fact, that she'd rushed out of her room, swooped down to pick up Monkey Bunkey II from where he'd been relegated to the corner of the hotel suite's couch, and proceeded to cuddle with the stuffed animal like she hadn't thrown a temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums earlier that day because he was the wrong monkey.

Huh.

He brought the phone up to his ear and was mildly surprised to find that Beckett hadn't hung up yet.

"How'd you do that?" he asked, all incredulity.

"Girls' secret, Castle."

"Hey, no fair! Do you know how long it took me to get her calm down enough at the airport so that the airport security guys would stop giving me funny looks? Whatever your trick is, I need to know. Especially if we're going to have to spend time with Meredith this week."

"If? I thought the whole point of flying out to California was so that Alexis could spend time with her mom."

"Yes, well, Meredith is unpredictable on her best days, and I've found that it's safest to have backup contingencies for my backup contingencies when it comes to her and Alexis."

Beckett was silent on the other end for a beat too long, and Rick wondered if his big mouth hadn't once again revealed too much about his family's current state of dysfunction.

When she spoke again, she steered clear of the subject of Meredith. "Your daughter likes to take care of things. For a four year old, she's so mature that I sometimes wonder if she's not the one who's parenting you."

"Funny."

"The point is, I just told her that Monkey-Bunkey's friend was sad because he didn't have anyone like Alexis to take care of him like Monkey-Bunkey did. So I asked her wouldn't it be great if she took care of him like she takes care of Monkey-Bunkey so Monkey-Bunkey The Second wouldn't feel so lonely."

"Huh. That's…pretty good actually. Why didn't I think of telling her a story like that?"

"Tsk, tsk. And here I thought you were supposed to be the writer."

"You're just on a roll today, aren't you?"

"What can I say? You make it so easy."

…

"You know, when I gave Alexis the okay to call me whenever she wanted, I really meant that it was only okay for _Alexis_ to call. And yet somehow you've managed to hijack every single one of our calls thus far. How's that work, ya think?"

Castle grinned, knowing that if she were really upset, she would have hung up on him a long time ago. Instead, they'd established something of a pattern. Alexis called Kate when she was tucked up in bed and Castle would wait just outside the door (Alexis refused to let him overhear their "girl-talk") until the murmurs quieted into silence and Alexis had fallen asleep on the phone. Then Castle would take over and they'd just talk until _Beckett_ nearly fell asleep on the phone.

The first time Castle walked into Alexis' room to find that she was asleep and clutching the phone in her tiny fingers, he'd been about to hang up when Beckett's hushed voice came across on the other end.

"Alexis?"

Startled, it took Castle a couple of seconds to bring the phone up to his ear. "She fell asleep."

Beckett laughed softly on the other end. "Ah, that would explain why her story began to get a little nonsensical at the end."

"You're good. Alexis doesn't usually fall asleep that quickly."

"She's probably just tired from the travelling."

Castle knew that wasn't it because the last time they went to California, Alexis had an even _harder _time than usual falling asleep. It was really hearing Beckett's voice in her ear that helped his daughter find sleep.

That probably wasn't something he should be telling her though. Didn't want to freak her out any more than he already had.

"Whatever the case, she's been sleeping a lot better, and that's thanks to you."

"I don't know, Castle. Maybe she just needed a chance of scenery."

"Hm, maybe. Hey, hang on for a sec, okay?"

Beckett had hummed her assent, and from then on, a pattern had been established.

One that they were continuing tonight, apparently.

After making sure that Alexis was all tucked in and comfortable, Castle exited her room quietly and closed the door partially behind him. He waited until he was back in the safety of his bedroom before he resumed the conversation. "I'm not hijacking the call, Detective. I'm making amends for the fact that my daughter has called you every night for the past couple of days, and every single time, she's fallen asleep on you. The least I could do is provide you with some entertainment whilst my daughter abandons you in favor of the fantastical fairylands of her dreams."

He could practically see the roll of her eyes. "Right, Castle. Of course it has nothing to do with trying to squeeze details out of me about the case I'm working right now."

"That, my dear Detective, is merely a side benefit."

"Uh-huh."

Castle grinned. Little did she know, the case really was just a side benefit. He just…wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice. He'd never wanted to just _talk _with a woman before, not since Kyra anyway, but Kate Beckett made him ache—not just for her as a woman, but for her as a friend.

He didn't know how much he'd just wanted a person to share his day with before Beckett came along.

"So, any interesting cases lately?" he prompted.

"Interesting?" He could hear the smirk in her voice. "Oh, you mean like how I had to put on this dark red, sexy little number to expose a high-scale call-girl ring?"

"Aw man, and I missed it?" he exclaimed with a groan.

It surprised him that she would tease him like this, especially after what happened the last time they'd seen each other, but Kate Beckett over the phone seemed like a different creature from Kate Beckett in person. Maybe it was the 3000 miles between them that made it kosher.

Either way, she sure liked to tease him.

She chuckled. "Oh and remember Johnny Vong's case?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well, I got a call today from some guy named Jack Coonan who said he had some information about the drug cartel that Vong is involved in."

"That's a huge break, isn't it?"

"Hm, maybe. We gotta see if he's just baiting us with false information in exchange for a quick trip to WITSEC because he pissed someone off recently. But if he's legit, then yeah, he might just be the key to breaking this case wide open."

"That's great! You think it'll all be over by the time I get back?"

"Don't worry, Castle. Cases like these aren't resolved in a day or even weeks. Still lots for us to do." She paused, then added, :Still plenty of messes for you to make and me to clean up after you."

"Hey, I resent that. I can be helpful."

"Keep telling yourself that, Castle, and if we're lucky, it'll come true."

"That's just mean. And just when I got you this awesome Christmas present too."

…

Kate's heart skipped a beat. He wouldn't, would he? Oh hell, who's she talking about? Of course he would.

She'd gotten a present for Alexis, of course, and okay, so maybe she'd gotten something little for Castle too, but the idea of exchanging Christmas presents with him now that she knew he'd gotten her a gift felt disturbingly intimate.

Oh jeez, what was she thinking? It was a stupid Christmas present. She gave her friends—and received in turn—Christmas presents all the time. It was no big deal.

"You sure it's not anything I'd shoot you for?"

He paused long enough to make her nervous until he spoke. "There's got to be something wrong with this picture. I offer to give you a present; you threaten to shoot me."

"Shut up, Castle," she muttered, her cheeks flaring red even as a smile tugged on her lips. It was kind of ridiculous, wasn't it? She changed the topic. "Any plans for Christmas?"

"Eh, Meredith and I came to a compromise, which is more than I can about our whole marriage. Quiet dinner at home in exchange for my bringing Alexis to one of Meredith's parties. Meredith wants to show off Alexis."

"That doesn't sound too bad. And it sounds like she's proud of Alexis."

Castle scoffed. "Yeah, that's because you've never been to one of Meredith's parties. It should probably be called a drunken orgy instead." At her pointed silence, he said, "Yes, yes. I used to enjoy my fair share of wild parties, but not since Alexis. I told Meredith we're staying for half an hour max and then I'm taking Alexis home."

"Maybe it won't be as bad as you think," Kate offered weakly.

"I wouldn't bet on it. What about you? What are you gonna be doing?"

"Nothing much. I'm on duty, but I'll go to my dad's for dinner."

"You're working on Christmas day?" he exclaimed, as if the very thought of it was sacrilege.

"It's not a big deal, Castle. I don't really need the holiday, and there are other cops with families who should get the day to spend with them."

"I don't know whether I should call you selfless or just plain sad."

"Wow. Thanks, Castle. Way to flatter a girl," she deadpanned.

"Hey, you deserve it. Come on, Beckett, it's _Christmas_! How can you not enjoy the magic of Christmas?"

"I never said I don't enjoy it. It's just that other people enjoy it more than I do."

"Oh, don't tell me you were one of those annoying six-year-olds who stopped believing in Santa Claus because you figured out he couldn't travel faster than the speed of light."

"I was three, and we didn't have a chimney."

"Hardy-har-har. That's just sad, Beckett."

"So you've told me. Repeatedly. If you're just going to keep insulting me tonight, I'm hanging up now."

She was oddly disappointed when he didn't immediately protest and instead a brief silence fell between them.

"Merry Christmas, Kate," he eventually said, the tone of his voice abruptly changing to something so tender that it did strange things to her stomach.

"Merry Christmas, Castle," she replied, her throat suddenly feeling dry.

"Oh, before you go. It's okay that you don't believe in Christmas magic. I believe enough for the both of us."

She didn't know what to say to that other than a whispered, "Good night."

…

Kate shuffled on the porch for a while, shaking off the snow that had gathered on her winter coat as she waited for her dad to get the door.

Christmas used to be huge in their family, but ever since her mother was murdered and her father sank into the oblivion found at the bottom of the bottle, there had been little to celebrate.

It was only just recently that Kate and her father Jim Beckett had managed to start getting together without letting the ghosts of the past taint this precious celebration of the miracle of life. It wasn't a coincidence that their holiday reunions started up at the same time as when Jim checked himself into rehab.

Two years without a drink thus far, and every time Kate saw her father's watch on her wrist, she was torn up with a mixture of guilt that she'd let him sink so far into his obsession, hurt that her Superdad had failed her when she needed him most, and pride that they'd finally found their way to piece their broken family back together again.

It had taken them years, but they were learning how to live again.

The day at the station had been fairly mild. There really wasn't much to do other than paperwork; apparently criminals hibernated in the cold much like everyone else.

Castle would probably say it was because nobody wanted to work on Christmas and then give her a pointed look.

She shook her head. God, why was she thinking about Castle right now?

Kate was rescued from the dangerous turn her thoughts had taken when the door swung open to reveal the tall, lean form of her dad silhouetted by the foyer lights.

"Katie," greeted her father as he pulled her in for a hug, which she returned after a brief hesitation.

They both pretended not to notice it.

She hated that things were still so stilted between them, and she knew that a big part of the problem was because of her. She was the one who had trouble with giving and receiving physical affection. She was the one whose subconscious couldn't completely let go of the hurt from past years.

She squeezed her arms tight around Jim's waist, a silent apology for her mental hang-ups, and murmured, "Merry Christmas, Dad."

He responded in kind and then planted a kiss on the crown of her head. "Come on in. You gotta help me with the pumpkin pie."

"Oh no, don't tell me you did the whole feast thing again. Last Christmas I was eating leftovers well after New Year's."

"Better than you ordering takeout all the time. Honestly, Katie. Your body can take it now because you're young and you're fit, but it'll take its toll once you get to my age."

"Luckily for me, I have another thirty years before I have to worry about that."

Jim bopped her lightly on the forehead and she laughed.

This…felt right. Like she had her father back and he had his daughter back.

Dinner passed relatively uneventfully, and while it was a quiet affair—neither she nor her dad were big talkers—it was comforting. For the first time in a long time, Kate felt relaxed with her father and not constantly wondering whether today would be the day he fell off the wagon.

Considering the hell their relationship had gone through in the past several years, it was nice to have a dinner that was comfortably low key.

That is, until Jim brought _it_ up just when she was about to head home. "You've sure been talking about this Castle and Alexis quite a bit tonight, Katie. Is there something I should know?"

Kate paused in the middle of shrugging on her coat and stared at her father blankly. "What?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Katie. You seem awfully invested in this little girl and her father."

"Dad, don't," she snapped, voice sharper than she'd meant it to be.

A stricken look passed across Jim's face, though he tried to suppress it, and Kate kicked herself for ruining what had been a wonderful night for them.

She sighed. "I'm sorry, Dad. I just—it's kinda complicated, and there isn't really anything to talk about."

He studied for a long time, and Kate suddenly wanted to squirm like a teenager. "Alright. I won't pry. But you can't tell me there isn't something serendipitous about the fact that your favorite author sees you as his muse."

"I'm not his muse!" she protested. "It's just research."

"Uh-huh. If you say so…"

"_Dad_…"

"Alright, alright. I'm done." He walked her to the door and kissed her on the forehead. "Stay safe, Katie."

A sudden of tears constricted her throat. "I will, Dad. You, too."

She walked out into the softly drifting snow and felt, for the first time in a while, cautiously optimistic about the coming year.

* * *

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_A/N: Hey folks, this is just a gentle reminder that I would really appreciate it if you could leave me some feedback for what I'm doing right/wrong. Thanks!_


	19. Chapter 19

_A/N: Despite my best intentions, it seems like I'm turning into _that_ author who updates only once every few weeks. -_- Thank you for all your very kind words and for your immeasurable patience. Rest assured that even though I'm plodding along with the speed of molasses, I WILL get this thing done eventually. In fact, I got so ticked off with myself that I decided to write out the next two chapters completely before I posted this chapter. As such, I'll post the finished chapters every three days in hopes that I'll be writing ahead of the curve by about two chapters every update. Hopefully that'll get me going. _

* * *

Chapter Nineteen

* * *

Kate was going to murder whoever was on the other side of her door.

She didn't usually take holiday leave, but when she did (read: forced to do so by her superior officer who'd found out that her vacation days were piling up into a little mountain of unused tax dollars), she liked to sleep in.

So when the persistent rapping wouldn't go away even when she buried her head beneath both pillow and comforter, she was less than amused. Rolling out of bed in an ungraceful tumble, Kate paused long enough to give herself a brief pat-down to make sure the oversized t-shirt and leggings she wore to sleep were respectable before trudging out of her bedroom and across the open floor of her living room.

Her ire grew with every step. If it was her neighbor from down the hall complaining about how late Kate came in some nights and how the noise from the elevator always woke him up, Kate was ready with a speech about being a cop and public safety and how he really shouldn't complain about someone who sometimes poured in eighty-hour weeks for the sake of—

She cut off her mental tirade when she threw open the door to find Castle on the other side. He grinned at her with a cheerful little wave that was entirely too chipper for being the one responsible for waking her up.

She slumped against her door frame and raked a weary hand through her tangled hair, too tired to even care that she looked like she'd just rolled out of bed. Which, incidentally, she had.

"Castle, what the hel—"

"Hello to you too, Beckett," he said, interrupting her before the curse word fell from her lips. He widened his eyes exaggeratedly and jerked his chin downwards. She followed his cue to see that Alexis was staring up at her with an excited expression painted all over her cherubic face.

Aw, damn it. How many times was that now? Alexis was _not _a free pass for Castle to use whenever he did something annoying. There ought to be a rule. Hell, where Castle was involved, there should be a rule just about everything.

Kate swallowed the acerbic tongue lashing she wanted to unleash on Castle and forced a smile on her face instead. "Castle. Alexis. What a _surprise_."

She knew that Castle didn't miss her deliberate emphasis on the last word when he gave her one of those innocent little boy shrugs.

Uh-huh. Yeah, not buying it, Castle.

"I know, right? Surprises are best things ever," he gushed, blue eyes laughing at her grumpiness. "Which is why we came over first thing in the morning after we flew back to give you this."

He bounced a little on the balls of his feet as he held up a festive gift-bag.

"It's your Chrissmas present!" Alexis chimed in, her genuine glee somewhat mollifying.

"Oh. Thanks," she said, still a bit in shock by the Castles showing up at her doorstep at—she glanced over at the digital clock on her microwave and mentally groaned—seven in the morning.

She opened the door wider to let them in and then shrugged on the faded cardinal red, zip-up hoodie that was slung over the back of her couch. Her mom often laughed about how Kate had bought just about every article of clothing that was branded with her school's proud name that first semester she'd been at Stanford. The years had certainly proved the hoodies, sweats, and t-shirts worth the money now that she'd worn them so often the fabric was starting to fray.

Castle and Alexis made themselves at home on her couch and they turned identical expectant looks on her as they kept glancing from the gift-bag he'd placed on her coffee table to her and back again. It was…cute how excited they were for her to see what they'd gotten her.

For all the laughter—despite the irritation—they'd brought into her life, Kate was glad that this once she had something in return.

"Sit tight for a sec. I have something for you, too."

She'd been nervous about getting them presents, but the way the eyes completely lit up at the mention of gifts told her it'd been a good decision.

Kate went back into her room to grab the two presents from the top of her dresser and set their respective, gift-wrapped boxes in front of them.

The trio exchanged a long look before Castle suggested, "On the count of three?"

"One!" Alexis called out immediately.

Kate laughed when she caught on. "Two!"

"Three!" declared Castle.

Then the three of them were tearing into their presents, giftwrap and tissue paper flying into the air as a bubble of laughter welled up inside of Kate. It was so childish, but she hadn't ripped into her presents like this for _years._

At the bottom of a mountain of tissue paper lay a homemade Christmas card drawn carefully (or as carefully as it could be using the hand of a four-year-old) with crayon and marker. Across the top in slightly crooked lettering was the festive words "Merry Christmas" with Kate's name along the bottom. A bright green Christmas tree with colorful lighting took up the space in the middle.

Kate smiled widely at the sight. "Oh, this is beautiful. Alexis must have made this. Castle can't draw this well."

Alexis giggled, a slight blush on her cheeks while Castle cast her an _I'm not amused _look which she returned with a smirk. Beneath the single sheet of paper was a cardboard box. She didn't dare shake it since it felt kind of heavy, and she noticed that Castle had stopped opening his own present to watch her reaction.

Her hands clammed up and her pulse thundered loudly in her ears.

He wouldn't give her anything...crazy, right? It was probably just a gad-gift and he was watching her so carefully because he wanted to hold this moment over her head later. That had to be it.

Kate wiped her hands on her leggings and slid her index finger under between the flaps of the cardboard to break the tape. With one last fortifying mental breath, she flipped open the lid to find herself staring at a set of beautifully hand-painted, porcelain ducks. It was a set of three—one larger mother duck and two smaller ducklings, each uniquely painted with some sort of Native American flair.

"Oh, wow," Kate said as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Castle, these are beautiful. Thank you."

Castle's eyes brightened and his shoulders loosened, as if he were afraid that she was going to reject his gift. "It's nothing expensive or anything. Promise. We were at one of those stalls at Venice beach, and when I saw it, I thought of you."

His eyebrows knit together as his gaze bore intently into her, and it took her a couple of seconds before she remembered the conversation they had weeks ago when he'd first asked her to spend time with Alexis.

Imprinting. Like a baby bird.

Oh jeez, Castle. What was he trying to imply?

She watched as uncertainty floated back into his eyes when she didn't say anything in response, but really, what was she supposed to say to that?

Then a shutter slid over the vulnerability of his expression, and he broke the tension with a laugh. "I don't know what's up with you and animals, but if those elephants on your desk at the station are any indication, I figured I couldn't go wrong with them."

Grateful for the out that he gave her while she shoved this away to process later, she chuckled with him. "You're probably right. Though," she slanted a look at him, "considering the fact that you follow me around in your shadowing gig, does that make you one of the ducklings?"

Castle opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, Alexis exclaimed, "Ice skates!"

Alexis bounced up and down on the couch, and then flung herself sideways toward Castle so that he could see the charm bracelet she shoved in his face.

"Whoa, calm down there, baby bird."

Kate flinched even though it was evident that this was a nickname that Castle routinely called Alexis. Ah hell, she'll probably never be able to order roast duck over at Sam's Wok, her favorite Chinese restaurant, without thinking about ducklings and imprinting and kids ever again.

"Let me see," Castle said to his daughter as he picked the bracelet out of her hands to look closely at the little charm shaped like ice skates hanging from one of the links. He looked up at Kate, and she didn't know how to read that expression.

Or maybe she didn't _want _to be able to read that expression.

Alexis demanded the bracelet back and Castle relinquished it without breaking his gaze with Kate. Bracelet in hand, Alexis skirted around the coffee table and jumped up to sling her arms around Kate's neck as the detective braced the girl's slight weight with an arm underneath her bottom.

"It's so pretty, Kate! Thank you."

"You're welcome, Alexis. I'm glad you like it."

"Help please?" asked the little girl as she held out her wrist and the bracelet.

"Of course," replied Kate as she set Alexis back on the ground so that she could unclasp the hook and fix it around Alexis' wrist.

It was Kate's turn to justify the present, saying, "It's not much, but I wanted to get something…." Alexis turned luminous eyes on her, those young eyes seemingly able to understand so much more than she should. "I wanted it to be a reminder that you can do anything you want if you put in the effort. Just like you did learning to ice skate."

Alexis' brows furrowed, little lines etching into her forehead as she digested this. "Like your necklace?"

Kate's breath caught as a hand automatically went to her throat even though her neck was bare. She always took it off before sleeping and she hadn't had a chance to put it back on after the Castles woke her up. "My necklace?"

Alexis nodded. "Is it to r'member something 'mportant?"

"I, uh—"

"Beckett, you don't have to answer that," Castle said, his voice low and gentle, somehow knowing that this was a big deal for her even though she'd never told him about it.

"It's okay. Alexis is right." Kate smiled softly, her eyes losing their focus on the present. "It was my mother's, and I wear it to remember her."

Alexis nodded solemnly. "Because she went far, far away."

"That's right. Very far away."

The ebullience of just five minutes ago faded into a sober silence, and Kate was sorry for it. Taking a deep breath, she forced her lips into a larger smile. "Your turn, Castle."

Castle's mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but she begged him with her eyes to let it go.

Kate breathed a sigh of relief when Castle ceded to her unspoken request and turned his attention to finishing unwrapping his present. He slipped the lid off the large rectangular box and barked out a laugh when he pulled out the t-shirt.

Kate grinned. She knew he'd like it.

"Look at that, Alexis. Daddy's got his own bullet-proof vest!" Castle exclaimed, pressing the shirt against his torso and looking down at it, a navy-blue Kevlar vest printed on both the front and back of the heather grey t-shirt.

"I figured you should get your own vest if you're so intent on following me around," said Kate with a playful glare, even though she didn't bother hiding her amusement.

His eyes widened. "You think I can get a real one?"

"No!"

"Why not? Like you said, I'm gonna be shadowing you, so—"

"Because you're not going to be near anywhere you'd need a bulletproof vest!"

"If you shoot me, will I not bleed?"

"You won't get shot because you won't be anywhere near gunfire."

"Don't be so pessimistic, Beckett."

Kate slapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh jeez. I should've known better than to get you a present at all."

"Hey, no take-backs!" Castle hugged the shirt possessively, looking like a little boy about ready to hide his stash of toys so that no one would take them.

Kate scoffed. "What are you, five?"

Alexis chimed in. "I'm four and a half."

Kate turned to look at Alexis who was cleaning up by gathering the scraps of torn giftwrap and tissue paper from the floor and placing it on the coffee table. Castle, by contrast, was ripping up a piece of wrapping paper and she just knew that he was going to—

The little paper pieces rained down on them like confetti and Kate glared at an unrepentant Castle, while she said to Alexis, "You're also much more mature than your dad."

"Hey!" Castle interjected.

"What? It's true, isn't it?" she challenged.

He blinked. "Well, yeah, but that's not nice."

"Castle, you're the one who came barging into my apartment at 7 a.m. this morning—"

"Bearing gifts!" he reminded her.

"—and for that matter, how did you know I wasn't gonna be at work? And how do you know where I _live_?"

"Little birdie told me?"

God, what was up with his obsession with birds today?

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You called the captain, didn't you?"

"Maybe."

"Oh gee, that's great."

"He was very informative."

"Captain Montgomery wouldn't just give you my address. That's a safety issue."

"Pft. Safety issue," he scoffed as if it was ridiculous that she'd say such a thing. "It's not like I'm some crazy stalker following you around all day." She raised a pointed eyebrow at him and he hastened to clarify, "Hey, I _shadow _you, not stalk. I admit there are some similarities, but it—I'm just—it's a lot less creepy, okay?"

That earned him an automatic eye-roll and a sigh. "You went through my drawers at the precinct."

He paused, debating whether it was safe to answer in the affirmative, no doubt, then said, "You know, if you don't want people getting in your stuff, you should really just lock up your drawers. Also, that little stickman you keep in there? Kinda creepy, Beckett. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were into voodoo."

"My God, Castle. You really just can't stay out of my private life, can you?"

"Be honest. Do you really want me to? Life would be so much more boring if you didn't have me around."

"And simpler."

"I notice you didn't say better," he quipped before quickly changing the topic. "_Anyway_, we came by today to see if you wanted to hang out with us at the park. Make some snow angels. Throw some snowballs. Oh oh oh! Have a snowman-making contest!"

"Castle…"

"You don't have work today and Alexis misses you."

Alexis, deliberately or not (though, knowing the Castles, it was probably on purpose), turned big, gleaming eyes on Kate and even added a bit of a bottom lip quiver to her pout.

"You are _so _underhanded," she hissed at Castle.

He just grinned. "So you comin' or what?"

She rested her head on the back of her recliner and stared at the ceiling.

God, the Castles were relentless.

"Yeah, I'm coming."

Kate couldn't tell if it was Castle or Alexis who let out the bigger whoop.

…

"How is it possible that _you_ made a better snowman than I did?" Rick whined in a hushed whisper as they stepped into the elevator in her building to take them up to her floor. Alexis was blissfully passed out on his shoulder, her cheeks ruddy and her mouth open as she snored lightly, and he adjusted his grip on her so that she sat more securely on his hip. She'd fallen asleep barely a minute into the ride back to Beckett's place from the park. Considering how wildly they'd been playing for the last two hours, Castle wasn't surprised to find his daughter completely dead to the waking. "It's taken me _years _to perfect the art of snowman-sculpting."

Beckett jabbed the button for her floor, then slanted her eyes at him, her lips pressed together in either annoyance or amusement. It was kind of hard to tell sometimes. "Stop being such a sore loser, Castle."

"It's a matter of fairness, Beckett."

"Uh-huh. If you'll recall, your _daughter_ was the one who decided. Seems pretty fair to me."

"I bet you're doing some mind-bendy thing to turn Alexis against me."

"You're going with mind-bendy thing? Seriously," she said, more of a dry statement than a question.

"What? It's possible."

"Castle, have you never learned the difference between possibility and plausibility?"

"Ooh, arguing semantics. A woman after my own heart," he said, wriggling his eyebrows at her in a ridiculous leer.

"I thought I'm the evil witch who turned Alexis against you. Now I'm in communion with you?"

"Hey, just because you have witchy powers doesn't mean that I can't appreciate your finer assets."

She shot him one of her warning glares—a different category from the shut-the-hell-up-glare, the stop-embarrassing-me glare, and of course, the ever popular I-can-kill-you-and-no-one-will-ever-find-the-body glare.

"Not _those_ kinds of assets. Although—"

"_Castle_…"

"Right, shutting up now."

He lasted the entire elevator ride before he couldn't take it anymore.

Just as the elevator _dinged_ and they stepped out on her floor, he continued his rant. "Seriously, though. How does your boring, average Joe snowman beat out Han Snowlo? I even sculpted the Millennium Falcon for Snowlo to stand on!"

"That _was_ pretty impressive," Beckett conceded, "except for the fact that you said we couldn't leave until there was a winner and you weren't even half-way done with your masterpiece. Alexis, smart, young, _tired_ Padawan that she is, chose the route of expediency."

"Stop trying to impress me with your geek knowledge and extensive vocabulary," he grumbled.

"Stop pouting, Castle. It's really unattractive." He opened his mouth to respond but Beckett cut him off before he could make a sound. "No."

He stopped in the middle of the hallway, completely disregarding the puddle forming around his feet as melted snow slid off his jacket and dripped to the floor. His voice elevated. "How'd you—"

"Shhh!" Beckett hushed, gesturing at Alexis.

"How'd you know what I was going to say?" Rick asked, lowering voice.

"You're not exactly hard to predict, Castle," she told him. "You were going to ask me if that means you're attractive when you're not pouting."

"Scare-y." Rick shuddered theatrically, his shoulders rolling and his body quivering in mock fear. "See! You really _are _doing some mind-bendy, psychic thing!"

Beckett scoffed, shaking her head as she left Rick standing there. "There's no such thing as psychics."

Rick grabbed at the sleeve of her jacket and pulled her to a stop. "You don't believe in psychics?"

"Uh, no," she replied like he'd just asked her the dumbest question ever.

He took personal umbrage at the condescending look she shot him. It wasn't as if he was a hardcore believer in the mysterious arts, but he was open to the possibility that there might be a plane that operated above their own.

"Why is it so crazy to believe that real psychics might exist?"

Beckett's nose scrunched into a cute little, annoyed furrow. "I wasted a lot of time in my first two years on the force chasing after leads that were called in by psychic hotlines that never panned out. I even remember this one woman calling in to tell me that one day I would meet an Alexander and he would be really important to me and how he might save my life some day and stupid stuff like that. I mean, how vague is that? I don't even _know_ an Alexander."

Rick grinned. Oh this was good. This was _way_ too good. "Sure you do."

"Uh, _no,_ I don't."

"Yes, you do." He waited a beat for the dramatic pause his mother would be proud of, then he continued, saying, "_My_ middle name is Alexander."

"I thought your middle name is Edgar."

"Somebody's been perusing the personal section of my website, I see." He chuckled when she glared at him. "No, I changed my middle name to Edgar the same time I changed my last name to Castle. My given name is Richard Alexander Rodgers."

He winked at her. "So how important did this psychic say I would be to you?"

She stuttered for just a moment, visibly thrown off by his revelation, but she recovered quickly. "See, _that's_ exactly what I mean. All this psychic bahooey is so vague and obscure that people see only what they want to see when something like this _coincidence_ happens. It's not mind-reading; it's mental manipulation, plain and simple."

Rick shook his head at her. "So no Santa Claus and no psychics. Do you believe in _anything_?"

"Sure. I believe in hard work and tangible evidence."

"You don't even believe in the possibility that there's something out there beyond ourselves?"

"I'm not saying that there _can't _be something supernatural out there, whether it be God or aliens or the Easter bunny. I'm just saying that without proof, I don't see that there's any reason to believe."

"Isn't that the point of faith though? That we don't have all the answers, but someone or something else might?"

Beckett tilted her head to the side and the corners of her lips turned down in a confused frown. "Castle, why is it so important to you that I believe all this stuff about magic and psychics and Santa Claus?"

Rick fell silent, not even sure himself why he was pushing this so hard. He wasn't religious in the remotest sense, nor did he even really believe in ghosts and little green (grey!) men, no matter how much he liked theorizing about them. But the way Beckett spoke about it…For some reason, it struck him as extraordinarily bleak.

He chose his words slowly. "Because…if you don't even believe in the _possibility_ of magic, you'll never ever find it."

Her lips parted, her expressive eyes filled with something that might be surprise as their eyes locked. The dim lighting of the hall caught the greens of her irises, the thickness of her lashes casting a mysterious shadow over her gaze. For a woman who didn't believe in the supernatural, Katherine Beckett's striking beauty often made him question whether she was truly merely mortal.

Alexis snuffled in her sleep, a high-pitched whine humming in her throat, and the moment broke.

Beckett cleared her throat and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture he now recognized. "Thanks for the ride home. And for my Christmas present. It was really sweet."

"Thanks for spending the day at the park with us. It was fun," he said, the word _fun _sounding so inadequate to describe the magic of the afternoon.

Beckett smiled, her eyes flicking up to his in a bout of sudden shyness. "Yeah. Yeah, it was."

He knew he was supposed to do something stupid or teasing or just anything that would break this tension cropping up between stronger than ever, but he couldn't bring himself to make light of this moment. Not when he'd just spent a morning watching her laugh with abandon as she played in the snow with him and his daughter. Not when he'd witnessed the mischievous sprite in her pelt him with snowballs. Not when she'd given his daughter the most meaningful gift she'd ever received in her four (and a half) young years.

He moved slowly, giving Beckett a chance to retreat, but she stood her ground, and his heart skipped a beat at the realization that she wanted this, even if she couldn't seem to admit it to herself yet. He shifted Alexis out of the way as he pressed in closer to Beckett until their lips met in a warm embrace. He didn't move to deepen the kiss, nor did she, yet there was something to be said for the intimacy of such simplicity.

Rick pulled back just enough to press his forehead against hers, their lips separating in a soft whisper and he couldn't stop the radiant grin from spreading across his face. Beckett's eyes were still closed and he watched in fascination as they slowly batted open to reveal the fascinating way the inner brown of her irises jagged into the vibrant greens along the outer rim.

His smile fell at the corners when he discovered that it wasn't just desire darkening her eyes.

He reached up to cradle her cheek, his thumb brushing a wide arc beneath her eye.

"I scare you," he said, his voice as unthreatening as he could make it.

Beckett surprised him when she reached up not to dislodge his hand, but to cover it with her own as she leaned into his caress. "You scare the hell out of me," she admitted.

They stood there unmoving for long moments before Castle risked the silence. "Where do we go from here?"

She shook her head, her eyes closing on something like agony. "I don't know."

* * *

.

.

_._

_._

_A/N: Credit for the idea of the ducks as a gift to Beckett goes to lv2bnsb1 who left it in a review several chapters back. It's not glass, but I figured painted ducks were more Beckett's style._

_Next chapter will be up in three days! See you then!_


	20. Chapter 20

_A/N: My niece and nephew are going to be here in two days! Hurrah! Oh, and it's kinda cool that my sister and brother'll be here for Christmas too... _

_Shorter chapter today, but the last few chapters have been uncharacteristically long anyway. I'm amazed that so many people are still following this story or have recently discovered it and decided to give it a try. As always, I am equal parts humbled and thankful. _

* * *

Chapter Twenty

* * *

Kate spent much of the next day in a cleaning frenzy. It was what she resorted to when she was stressed and didn't have work with which to distract her, considering that she'd been essentially banned from the precinct until after the New Year officially rang in on Monday. Meaning, she could either spend her time contemplating the complication that was Richard Castle…

Or she could clean.

She chose cleaning.

Unfortunately, Kate had always been an industrious little bee, and by late morning, her bathroom was scrubbed, her counters sparkling, her floor mopped, her bookshelves reorganized, and damn it, even the take-out haven in her fridge had been cleaned out.

Which left her with nothing to do but stare at the ticking clock as that god-awful (wonderful) kiss(es) replayed in her head again and again.

Castle had left soon after their non-resolution, leaving her with a reminder for his New Year's party on Saturday night and a mess of confusion. Thankfully, he didn't seem inclined to push. She had to admit that he was being extremely considerate about the whole mess that was their limbo-like relationship. Maybe it was unfair, but she wouldn't have guessed he'd be able to be so mature about it—more mature than she herself, if she was being honest.

She wasn't at all put off by the fact that he came off so unconcerned as to how their relationship developed. She really wasn't.

When her phone rang, she tripped over the bucket of cleaning supplies sitting in the middle of her living room in her haste to pick it up. She spied "The 12th Precinct" as the caller ID and sent up a quick thanks to whomever might be listening.

"Beckett," she answered, all the while chanting _Please let me come in, please let me come in, please let me come in!_

The universe finally decided to bounce her way because it was Evans on the line. "Sorry to cut your vacay short, kid, but we need you to come in."

"No problem. On my way right now." She immediately stripped off her rubber washing gloves, dumping them into her kitchen sink, and almost ran to her closet to pick out a casual work outfit.

Evans made some strangled noise on the other end. "Damn, Beckett. Sound a little more upset, why don't ya? You do realize that normal people actually like taking a break every now and then."

"Yeah yeah yeah. So what's going down anyway?"

"Your boy Coonan was found dead last night in his apartment, leaking from about thirty holes that shouldn't exist in a healthy thirty-five year-old male."

Kate sucked in a sharp breath of air. "Is it related to the drug case?"

"It's too early to say for sure, but the guys in Homicide are reaching out to us for assistance. You were the one who handled the call with Coonan, so they want to talk with you directly. They'll have more for you when you get down here. I'm just the messenger."

After Kate hung up with the senior detective, she changed in record time as excitement trilled through her. She wasn't happy that Coonan was murdered—never that—but this was her first time working with Homicide. If everything continued in the direction it seemed to be going, she could be in Homicide within weeks. This was a great opportunity for her to prove to anyone who might be watching that she'd be an asset.

That she now had a legitimate reason to ignore Castle and his drugging kisses was simply an added bonus.

…

The detective lounging across from Kate on the break room couch reminded her of the tall, gruff guy on the TV show _Chuck_, though the rough stubble made him look a little like the dude who wore that atrocious knit cap on Whedon's cult hit. (_Nebula-9_ was by far the superior short-lived space saga in her humble opinion.) Either way, Detective Ethan Slaughter wasn't exactly who she thought she'd be dealing with when told Homicide wanted to talk with her. From what she knew of the guy, Slaughter dealt mostly with gangs, not homicide.

He was also a world-class jerk.

"Detective Beckett, your reputation precedes you," he drawled, his intent study of Beckett's body creating an effect not unlike the feeling of a thousand spiders on crawling on her skin.

Oh great. Slaughter was one of _those _guys.

She'd had more than her fair share of run-ins with the more misogynistic crowd in law enforcement, and though it irked her that she had to deal with one on what she was quickly coming to consider _her case, _she wasn't particularly surprised. Slaughter was an asshole of a cop who'd earned the nickname the Widowmaker because three of his previous partners were killed in action, two of whom didn't even make it through the first day partnered with him. Beckett was mildly surprised that he hadn't already been stripped of his badge, but for all his faults, Slaughter brought in undeniable results. And oftentimes, results were all the folks at 1PP cared about.

"Detective Slaughter, can't say it's a pleasure to meet you." Beckett decided to cut right to the heart of things. She wasn't about to tempt herself into getting baited by Slaughter with pointless small talk. "Why're you on this case, Slaughter? Don't you deal primarily with gangs?"

"Ah, so you _do _know about me. How flattering." He leered at her, and Beckett felt the back of her neck erupt in goose bumps. The guy gave her serious heebie-jeebies. "I'm here for the obvious reason. Coonan's death was gang-related."

"What?"

"If you did your homework on the guy, _Detective_," he said, using her title like a slur, "then you should've known that Coonan was an enforcer for the Westies. That's straight out of Hell's Kitchen if you're wonderin'."

Beckett pushed down the well of irritation at his patronizing tone. "I _know _who the Westies are. To my knowledge, the Westies have a strict no drugs policy. If this has nothing to do with Vong and the drug cartel, why am I here?"

Slaughter looked vaguely impressed that she knew anything about the Westies at all, and Beckett grit her teeth. God, she hated his condescension.

"Yeah, well, Cap wanted to cover all the bases, but it's a waste of time if you ask me. From my experience, everything points to a hit from Coonan's own people."

"And what's everything?" she asked, having to press the issue since Slaughter was less than forthcoming with the details.

The gang detective narrowed his eyes at her, suddenly sensing her aggression. Or maybe he was just annoyed by the fact that she wasn't simply taking his word for it. "The guy had a twelve gauge hollow point as his home security system and yet he didn't even take a shot. No sign of forced entry either which put together means he likely knew his killer. He tries to cop a deal with you, and the next week he ends up dead. Doesn't take much to figure out that he probably betrayed his Westie pals and needed protection."

Beckett agreed that it was a possibility, but something didn't sit right. If Coonan just wanted protection, how did he know about Vong and the drugs at all? It wasn't common knowledge; if anything, that case and all its details had been kept on the DL. One could never be too careful when dealing with drug cartels, and the last thing they needed was a leak going out to the leaders of the organization alerting them of the investigation.

"You sound pretty sure of yourself," she said carefully, knowing that Slaughter was the kind of guy to dig in stubbornly if he thought his judgment was questioned.

"Course I am. I been working gangs for a long time, Beckett." Then he shot her a smarmy grin that was supposed to come off as suave. It just made her shudder in revulsion. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it."

That son of a—

She clenched her fists and swallowed her retort.

Just wait until _this _pretty little head proves you wrong, jackass.

…

Technically, since the homicide was Slaughter's case, Beckett couldn't investigate it without an ethics violation that could get her suspended, but she didn't have to look long to find a loophole. There was nothing wrong with her continuing to look into her original case with Oz, Vong, and the drug cartel, and if those two cases happened to coincide, well, then who'd'a thunk?

In a stroke of what others might deem a giant coincidence—she didn't believe in coincidences when it came to her cases—the officers tailing Trucho the blade-man came back with news that early in the morning right after Coonan's murder, Trucho had had the living snot beat out of him by whom else but the Westies.

To Beckett, the questionable timing of that all signaled only one conclusion: the Westies thought Trucho, and by extension, the Latin Kings, had something to do with Coonan's death. Therefore, they'd retaliated.

So it was that Kate found herself striding through the swinging doors to the morgue later that afternoon.

"Got a project for you, Lanie," she said without preamble. She held up a transparent plastic evidence bag and wiggled it between her thumb and index finger. Inside was a small knife that the officers had found tucked behind the driver's side sun visor when they'd picked up Trucho. Nominally, it was for a misdemeanor; factually, it was to protect him until they could sort this out before the Westies sent him floating down the East River.

Lanie flipped up her visor and put down the motorized saw she was about to use to cut open Jack Coonan's torso. "What's that?"

Beckett nodded at Coonan's corpse. "Wanted to ask if this blade's a match for our guy's knife wounds."

Lanie squinted at the knife in the bag then swiftly dismissed it. "That's not it."

"You barely even look!" Beckett protested.

"Sure I did. It's a stiletto, four-inch Damascus blade and is way too small to make these wounds."

"Maybe he used a different knife."

Lanie paused to think about that for a moment. "How tall is your suspect?"

"Five-six on a lucky day."

Lanie shook her head. "Not your guy, then. Thrust angle on these wounds indicate Coonan's killer was over six-foot."

Damn it. That put a dent into Beckett's theory that Coonan's death had to do with Trucho and the drug cartel. It couldn't just be a coincidence that Finn Rourke, the head of the Westies, picked up Trucho right after Coonan was murdered though, could it? There had to be a connection. Or was she too blinded by the fact that she _wanted _Slaughter to be wrong about the Westies picking off their own man that she didn't want to see the other viable conclusion? What if Rourke had Trucho beat black-and-blue as a decoy for Coonan's murder?

In which case, she had absolutely no right to look into this murder.

Damn it all, she _really_ didn't want Slaughter to be right about the gang angle.

"Thanks, Lanie."

"No problem," replied the ME, her brown eyes following Beckett out the double doors.

Beckett was so preoccupied with contemplating the possibilities that she missed the concerned looks Lanie kept sending her way.

…

By the time Beckett made it back from the OCME, Castle was waiting for her in the old rickety chair he'd commandeered the last time he was at the station. Beckett frowned when she saw that he was entertaining himself by chaining together a bunch of…paperclips?

He could be such a child.

"Being productive I see," she remarked, her tone dry. She was irritated by his presence, but not at all surprised by it. He had this knack for showing up out of the blue.

He startled, knocking the box of paperclips to the floor. They scattered across the hardwood floor in a metallic melody of disaster as his shoulders went up to his ears in a cringe. He shot her a _Did I do that? _Urkel-look and she merely shook her head at him as she slung her bag into her drawer and turned on her computer.

Castle bent down to scoop the bent metal pieces back into the little cardboard box and Beckett grimaced at the thought of whatever else he'd picked up from the floor along with the paperclips. She wasn't a germophobe, but there were certainly cleaner places than the precinct's floor.

When Castle finished picking up the last paperclip, he sat back in his chair and gifted her with that excited little boy grin. "I heard there was a break in our case."

"_Our_ case?" she repeated, an eyebrow rising at his presumption.

"Yeah," he responded, not sensing anything wrong with claiming partial ownership over the case. With a sigh, she decided not to pick this particular battle. She was more interested in where he got his information. When she put words to her thoughts, he looked at her as if she'd just asked him the silliest question. "I know a guy who knows a guy."

She pursed her lips as she regarded him. He was sitting straight up in the chair with an air of smug arrogance as he pretended not to watch for her reaction from the corner of his eye.

She turned to her computer screen to search for more information on Jack Coonan as she purposefully ignored Castle's posturing. Then, when she was sure that Castle was about to pop, she casually asked, "Esposito or Ryan?"

He deflated immediately, his torso slumping back into the chair as he pouted at her. "Ryan. It appears your witchy powers are only growing."

A soft laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. When she looked up, Castle's eyes were bright with satisfaction and his earlier conceit replaced with a tenderness that threatened to stop her heart.

"I like it when you laugh," he said, his tone low and seeping through the crevices of the wall she tried to keep between them.

"_You_ make me laugh," she replied and though she'd meant it as a jab, she couldn't deny the truth behind it.

He _did_ make her laugh. More than she had in a long time.

…

Rick had to say: he was really starting to get pretty good at picking up when to change the subject so as to not completely freak Beckett out. And skittish as she was, that was a pretty damn handy instinct to develop.

"So what's up with that Slaughter guy? Who, by the way, looks like he'd be a fantastic character in a book. Gritty street cop kicking ass and taking names? Classic."

"If he's such a good character, why don't you go shadow him for a while instead?"

"No thanks," he said, tone surprisingly sincere as the intensity of his eyes pinned her to her seat. "I've got all the inspiration I need right here."

Beckett flushed red, averting her eyes quickly and getting a little stammer in her voice that he thought was simply adorable. "Yeah, well, you're better off keeping your distance from that guy. He's a loose cannon, and the last thing I need is more paperwork after he's done with you."

He pressed his hand against his chest and feigned hurt. "Your concern is touching."

She pressed her lips together in that suppressed smile he loved to squeeze out of her. The corners of her eyes would crinkle just the slightest bit, and the laugh lines around her mouth told of carefree days when she hadn't been burdened by a loved one's violent death.

Castle liked to think that he brought some joy back into her life, no matter how much she denied it.

Despite her earlier protestations of his involvement in the case, Beckett didn't hesitate to catch him up to speed with all the new developments, ending with the possibility that Slaughter might have been right about the gang angle.

"I don't buy it," Rick declared when Beckett finished her recap.

Beckett's eyebrows shot up as she said, "Really? I thought Irish mobsters would be right up your alley."

"Well, yeah, that part's awesome. Have you ever been to an Irish pub before? I went once for research, and there was this one group of tough guys who were popping pickled eggs without blinking. I tried one and, man, those things can really sting going down and—"

"Castle."

"The point is," he segued in seamlessly from his ramble like she hadn't prompted him, "as much as I like the idea of Irish mobsters (Ooooh! I need to get Ryan to say _boyo_!), the fact that Coonan pointed out Johnny-boy specifically as part of the drug trade gives me pause. How would he know the players in a case that hasn't been made public unless he was a part of it?"

Her lips twisted into a mischievous half-smile that sent all sorts of illicit thoughts racing his head. "That's enough to warrant a trip out to Finn Rourke's backyard, don't you think?"

Castle tamped down his excitement as best as he could, but from the amused glance Beckett shot him as she gathered up her things to leave again, she obviously didn't miss the extra bounce in his step as he followed her to the elevator.

"Just remember to butch up a little, Castle."

* * *

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_A/N: Just a quick note about Jack Coonan's age. In "Sucker Punch," it says that he's 35, and that he's Dick Coonan's older brother. However, Dick was supposedly a Gulf War vet (based on the special operations knife he uses) which would put him at, the youngest, 40. The age discrepancy always bothered me, so I'm changing Jack from being Dick's older brother to his younger brother. Does it matter in the long run? No, but I'm a sucker for in-verse continuity._


	21. Chapter 21

_A/N: I had this written several weeks ago, but I couldn't publish it until I made sure the continuity was right with the next couple of chapters. In any case, sorry for the delay. This and the next chapter are pretty canon-heavy, but the really fun stuff takes off after that. Thanks for reading!_

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One

* * *

Maybe it was a product of the Irish culture, thought Beckett as she scoped out Rourke's establishment from a back corner.

Incandescent bulbs threw dim yellow light into the open spaces of the pub, illuminating and casting shadows along the faces of those gathered around Jack Coonan's coffin. They'd placed it on top of a pool table, bottles of alcohol lined up on the shelves beneath his casket. But there was nothing irreverent about it. No, the gloom of loss was authentic.

Many were gathered there for Jack Coonan's wake, and Beckett felt a pang of sympathy for the dead man. From all accounts, he'd been honorable in his own way and many of the faces there were genuinely distraught. One woman in particular with a cascade of wavy brunette hair looked especially stricken as tears streamed down her cheeks unchecked.

Finn Rourke, or so she assumed by his place of prominence at the front of the room, was a grizzled old man. The years had seen the thick brush of his beard whiten completely, and lines born from both age and stress marked his weary face. Despite that, he stood tall and proud, his eyes glinting with the icy blue sharpness that only a man who'd fought his way to the top and ruthlessly defended his perch could possess. There was wisdom there, fashioned by a lifetime of trial and error, but never regret.

Finn Rourke was one of those rare criminals that Beckett found herself respecting despite herself because he operated on a code of honor that preceded the establishment of law enforcement.

Didn't make him any less of a criminal, though, she reminded herself.

When Rourke spoke, everyone quieted in respect, his rumbling brogue booming even with the bar's smothering acoustics. "An angel visited Jackie's home two nights ago. Same angels that took the pharaoh's first born. Now I know some of you think you don't know the angel of death. But trust me, lads, he knows you. So here's to darling Jackie. He's up in heaven now you can be sure, he broke in when they was in vespers!"

Raucous laughter thundered throughout the bar as they all downed their drinks in tribute to their fallen brother.

With a gesture to Castle for him to follow her closely, Beckett snaked her way through the tables until she stood before Rourke himself.

The leader of the Westies narrowed his eyes at her and Castle, trying to read their purpose no doubt. "Come to honor the dead, I hope?" he questioned, a note of menace bolstering the strength of his even tone. "If not, I'll thank you to move away from this place."

Beckett stood her ground, knowing that men like Rourke only respected strength. "I'm Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. I'm here about Jack Coonan."

Rourke stilled. "Like I told the other detective—"

Damn. Beckett should've known that Slaughter would get here first.

"—I know nothing about Jackie's murder. In fact, none of us know anything. If that's all, I'm sure you can find your own way out."

Beckett made a snap decision. Dangerous as it might be, Rourke wasn't going to give her anything without a little push.

Or a shove.

She stepped into Rourke's space and drilled her eyes onto his. Pitching her voice low, she bit back. "You're lying. You know exactly what happened to Jack Coonan. That once-over you gave Trucho was just a bit of theater to throw them all off, just like your eulogy."

A menacing growl emitted from the depths of Rourke's chest. "Now you be careful, Detective."

"Or what?" she baited. "You'll kill me like you killed Coonan after he went to the cops about you?"

"Enough!" he roared, images of a fierce warrior from bygone days flashing through Beckett's mind as Rourke's temper flashed. "I'll not have you slander him like this. Not tonight."

Beckett inwardly smirked. She'd hooked him the moment Rourke lost his temper. Now all she had to do was reel in the information she wanted. "I got it straight from Jack. I'm the cop he reached out to just before he died."

"He turned on you, didn't he?" Castle's voice was soft, almost compassionate, and Beckett was startled when she felt Castle at her back. She was glad for it, though. Irrationally, his presence gave her confidence.

For the first time that night, Rourke looked slightly troubled, his eyes focusing on the wall fixture behind them. "You don't know what you're talking about, boyo. Jackie Coonan was loyal to his last breath. He died in a state of grace. Even if what you're saying is true, you can be sure that Jackie wasn't talking about any of us."

"How can you be so sure?" Beckett asked, pressing for more. She could feel it in her bones that this was it.

The corners of Rourke's lips turned up in a humorless smile. "You've heard of me. You've heard I'm a gangster, and a thief, surely you've heard I've killed men. But you answer me this, Detective. Have you ever heard Finn Rourke running drugs? Someone was bringing it in here, into my neighborhood, my backyard. I sent Jackie to find the bastards behind it. Find them and punish them, according to our rules."

"Only they punished him instead," Castle finished for him.

"Aye. That they did." The steel in Rourke's back loosened and just a fraction of a second, he looked like just any other old man on the street and not the leader of a powerful gang. Then the visage burned away and the leader of the Westies returned with renewed vigor, his brogue thickening with his temper. "Now, if you've got probable cause, I suggest you arrest me now. If not, I'll remind ye this is a private party, and I'll thank ye to get the _hell_ out of my place."

…

Beckett drummed her fingers along the steering wheel and watched Castle out of the corner of her eye. He was leaning over the dash in an effort to see better out the windshield into the inky night, and she smiled a little to herself at his eagerness.

"Give her minute, Castle. She can't just follow us out. It'd be too obvious."

Castle's snapped his head around and stared at her with wide eyes. "You noticed her?"

Beckett suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Just barely. "I'm a detective. If there's one thing I know how to spot, it's a lady looking to unburden herself."

Just then a slight figure slipped out of the building, a well of noise rising and falling as the doors shut behind her, and she darted across the shadowed street to where Beckett's unmarked cruiser was parked.

Beckett rolled down the window just as the other woman made it to the car, tossing a worried glance behind her. Beckett wasn't too surprised to see that she was the same woman who'd looked so miserable at Coonan's wake.

The woman met Beckett's eyes briefly, then flicked her gaze around nervously. "Hi, I'm Molly."

"Hi Molly. I'm Kate. Can I give you a ride?"

Molly breathed out a quiet sigh of relief. "Anywhere but here."

Beckett unlocked the door and waited for Molly to climb in before starting the engine. Through the rearview mirror, Beckett saw Molly's hands fidgeting in her lap as she stared resolutely out the window. A wash of compassion swept through the detective.

It wasn't easy losing a loved one.

Silence reigned for the first ten minutes of the drive as they each waited to get a feel for the situation. Even Castle remained surprisingly still, letting her take the lead on this.

It was Molly who eventually broke the quiet. "You're the cop Jackie called just before he died, aren't you?"

Beckett nodded, her eyes meeting Molly's through the rearview mirror. "Yes. I'm sorry for your loss."

Molly smiled humorlessly, her dark eyes welling at the reminder. "Jackie's reputation was part of what attracted me to him." She must have sensed something in the silence because she added, "You tellin' me you never had a thing for bad boys, Kate?"

Beckett's eyes flicked over to Castle without her permission. She had to hand it to him. His casual expression didn't change, but from the stillness of his body, Beckett knew that he was listening intently for her answer.

"No comment," the detective replied dryly.

Molly chuckled a little, but it trickled away with a melancholic sigh. "We shoulda known it'd catch up with him. Jackie and I never talked business, but I know he wanted out. We talked about going somewhere far away. Last week he warned me he might get there first."

That caught Castle's attention. "Jack saw this coming?"

"We spent every night together. He couldn't get to sleep without me next to him. But last week he wouldn't even let me come over. Anybody but Jack and I'd have thought he had something going on the side."

Beckett hated to ask, especially since it seemed like Molly and Jack had been devoted to one another, but… "That never crossed your mind?"

Molly stilled then she reached for the thin chain she wore around her neck. She lifted it over her head and handed it to Castle who held it up so that Beckett could get a glimpse of it as she momentarily took her eyes off the road.

"That's the last thing Jack ever gave me on the last night I ever spent with him. Jack said if things broke bad, he wanted me to give this to the police. Guess he was right, after all."

…

Detective Slaughter was waiting by Beckett's desk when they got back from dropping Molly off at her apartment.

Oh boy. This wasn't going to be pretty.

Castle, walking behind her and chattering on about one theory or another (she'd lost track somewhere between CIA conspiracy, alien brainwashing, and a mix of the two), remained oblivious to the sparks of animosity emanating from Slaughter until Castle looked up and realized with a slow blink that his chair was occupied.

"You're in my chair," Castle said inanely. Slaughter gifted him with a deadly stare and Castle swallowed before hastily adding, "But you're welcome to sit in it, of course."

Ah, well, great job reinforcing the idea that people can do whatever they want as long as they're scary enough, Castle.

"Detective Slaughter," she greeted guardedly. "What can I do for you?"

"Detective Beckett," he returned in kind, enunciating the consonants with an extra little punch, "you can explain to me why I have reports of you poaching my case."

Beckett set her bag down on her desk. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Slaughter scoffed. "Don't play dumb with me. My contact in the Westies tells me that you showed up to grill old man Rourke just earlier tonight. What were you doing if you weren't investigating _my _case?"

Beckett leaned back in her chair in a show of unaffected nonchalance. She could have maintained a physical advantage by standing, but she wanted to prove that she didn't need cheap intimidation tactics like that. "The world does not revolve around you, Slaughter. I was investigating _my _case. And if there happens to be some overlap with yours, well, then the universe does seem to have a unique sense of humor."

"That's absolute bullshit, and you know it. You may not be breaking the rules, but you're sure as hell violating the spirit of the law."

Beckett let out a harsh bark of laughter at that. "You're going to talk to _me _about violating the spirit of the law? How many charges for unnecessary roughness have you gotten recently, Slaughter? How many of your partners have been _killed_ in the line of duty because _you_ didn't bother watching their backs? You're an asshole, Slaughter, but I never took you for a hypocrite."

Instead of angering him, Beckett's calling him out only seemed to amuse him. "Wow. _Wow_. That's how you want to play, is it? Fine, fine. Do your thing then, Beckett. Don't come cryin' to me when you realize you're in over your head. Oh and one more thing." He stood and got in Beckett's face as he sneered, "Don't think you get a free pass to go interfering in everything just because you're Montgomery's _pet _detective."

His implication wasn't lost on any of them. Beckett had heard enough of that kind of misogynistic talk throughout her career, so it didn't even faze her when creeps like Slaughter tried to demean her like this. She knew who she was, and she wasn't about to let Slaughter throw her off by way of some distasteful slander.

Castle, on the other hand, was incensed.

"Watch your mouth," Castle growled, his tone was as low and menacing as she'd ever heard it.

It was also damn sexy. (Not that she would ever admit _that_ out loud.)

Beckett was torn between smiling and rolling her eyes at his ill-fated attempt at chivalry. Castle's desire to defend her honor was sweet, but wholly unneeded.

Slaughter was less than impressed. He snorted, waving Castle off with a dismissive gesture. "Or what? You gonna hit me, Sherlock?"

A tick developed in Castle's jaw and Beckett came to the startling realization that this would be the first time since she put on the badge that she'd pretend not to see a civilian deck a cop. If he did. Which he wouldn't. But if he did.

"Maybe I will," Castle replied with steel in his voice.

Slaughter laughed as he scratched at his beard. "Keep a leash on your pet, Beckett. Don't want him to hurt himself."

Beckett kept her voice bland as she refused to give in to Slaughter's attempts to rile her up. "You know where the exit is, Slaughter."

"What a jackhole," Castle muttered as soon as the elevator doors closed on Slaughter's smug visage.

"What happened to him being a great character for a book and all? What'd you call it—kicking ass and taking names?"

Castle sent her a look that said _you should know better_. "There's a reason guys like that should only exist in fiction."

Beckett suddenly found herself in a magnanimous mood toward Slaughter after hearing Castle's opinion of the gang detective. Call her twisted, but she liked that Castle didn't seem interested in hanging out with Slaughter.

"I don't approve of Slaughter's methods, but I have to admit that he's not precisely a bad cop. He's just an awful person to be around."

"No kidding," said Castle as he plopped into the chair Slaughter vacated. He jumped back up immediately with a squeal of distaste. "Aw _man_. Afterbum!"

"Excuse me?"

"You know, when you sit where someone else sat before and the chair's still warm from their butts. Afterbum."

"Who even says that?"

Castle shrugged, resting his hip on the edge of her desk instead of sitting back down. "Beats me. I saw it on Urban Dictionary when researching slang, so it's gotta be right."

Beckett shook her head, not knowing what to say to someone who could alternate between knight in shining and immature twelve-year-old at the drop of a dime. Even more perplexing was the fact that she found both personas unsettlingly endearing.

Then of course there was the scorching lover she'd gotten an insides-melting taste of the night before they left for L.A., the disgustingly-appealing doting father, and perhaps most dangerous of all, the sweet, gentle man who looked at her like she was something to be treasured.

She hadn't been exaggerating last night when she'd said that he scared the living hell out of her.

Wannabe-badboy slash arrogant-jerk she could deal with. Richard Castle the man with all his complexities however…That was a whole lot more daunting.

"So, what's the plan?"

"The plan is to go home tonight and check out the bus locker first thing tomorrow morning."

"How do you know it's to a bus locker?"

"It's always to a bus locker."

"Ooookay. So what time do we head out tomorrow morning?"

Kate arched an eyebrow at him. "We? Don't you have a New Year's party to prepare for tomorrow night?"

"That's what event planners are for. But, I am glad to hear that you remember because you still haven't told me whether you're going or not."

"Castle, I'm a cop. I'm not gonna go schmooze with your celebrity friends."

"Come _on_! It's not like it's going to be some huge thing. Besides, Esposito, Ryan, and even Captain Montgomery are going, so it's not like you won't know anyone there."

"Esposito and Ryan are only going because of the open bar. Captain Montgomery is used to going to these things. I'm not."

Castle narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean by _these things_? It's a party, Beckett. You're supposed to relax, have fun, celebrate the fact that we got through another year and that we have another year before the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar. What's so wrong with that?"

"Nothing! It's not—I just—why are you making such a big deal out of my going or not anyway?" she finally snapped at him, her tone more abrasive than she'd meant it to be.

His head jerked back slightly, almost like she'd hit him, his earlier, puppy-like eagerness draining out of him in one go. His shoulders slumped and she couldn't get the image of a disappointed little boy out of her head. She wanted to say something, anything so that he would stop looking so defeated, but the apology clogged in her throat.

"I just want you to be there," he eventually admitted, "With me. You know, looking forward to a new year?"

Oh Castle.

She sighed, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand.

They really needed to talk, didn't they? Or else things were just going to get more and more complicated, and then Castle was going to get his heart involved, if it wasn't already—damn did that thought scare her—and then she was going to mess up and disappoint him because let's face it, she was a bit of a screw-up when it came to personal relationships. Why would she even want to try when it'll more likely than not end up with heartache for both of them?

But the vice around her chest tightened every time she looked at him, and God help her, she was too selfish to step away.

She wanted him. She wanted the warmth of him, his easy friendship. She wanted the late night phone calls they'd exchanged during his time in California to become late night conversations they had while relaxing on the couch. She wanted the person she became when he dragged her into playing with him and his daughter. She wanted his open heart when it came to his daughter, and if she was honest, when it came to Kate herself.

She just…she wanted _him_.

Castle made a small sound of frustration and pushed off from her desk when she stayed silent for too long. "Look, forget it. I know you're busy with this case, and you have things to do. Just…just forget it."

Her hand reached out for him before she gave it permission. But in this one instance, she was glad her body reacted faster than her mind did.

Castle glanced down at where she'd grabbed a fistful of his jacket and turned wide eyes on her. "Beckett?"

She took a deep breath and jumped. "It's not that I don't want to be there, Castle."

His eyes softened and he gave her a small smile. "It's fine, Beckett. I shouldn't have pushed."

Oh man, there he went again, being all considerate and shit, but what he didn't understand—hell, what she hadn't understood until just this very moment—was that she _needed_ him to push. Just a little.

"I can't promise anything right now, especially with this case going on, but," she paused, making sure she had his attention before deliberately saying, "I'll try."

By the brilliant grin that lit up his face, Castle understood.

He straightened his jacket, and with a jaunty little wave, he set off for the elevator. "Remember to call me when you go check out that bus locker!" he tossed over his shoulder.

What a jerk.

She couldn't stop smiling.

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_A/N: Also, check out my new piece, **Keyser Söze**! Not getting much love for that one. :P _

_Thanks for reading!_


	22. Chapter 22

_A/N: So...been going through a bit of a quarter-life crisis. (kidding/not kidding) I turned 25 today and realized that there's so much in life that I haven't done yet. One of those _not done yet_s include completing a novel-length story. As such, I am determined to finish this thing and add that to my list of accomplishments. ;)_

_A big shout-out to Lydian Stone for handing me my 400th review for this story. That's a milestone I've never reached in almost nine years of fanfiction writing, so thank you to all of you out there who've been kind enough to drop me a note or two._

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Two

* * *

"Don't you think this whole bus locker thing is a little cliché?" Castle commented as he lengthened his stride to match Beckett's determined march. The crowds gave them wide berth, and while Castle briefly indulged in the illusion that the Red Sea of humans was parting at his behest, it was more likely that nobody wanted to get in Beckett's way. She had the face of someone who wouldn't mind mowing down an innocent pedestrian or two.

"If this situation is too trite for your delicate writer's sensibilities, you could always just—oh I don't know—leave?"

"Oh heck no. Just because it's overdone doesn't mean it's not fun."

His shoulders popped up in an innocent _what?_ gesture when her eyes rolled toward the ceiling in an unmistakable plea for divine intervention.

"Just don't get in the way," she said, though they both knew it was only for show. For the first time in their relationship, she was the one who called him, and whether or not she was willing to admit it, it marked a turning point.

Or so Castle liked to believe.

To be honest, he'd been surprised when Beckett actually called him the next morning.

He hadn't been entirely serious about going to check out the bus-locker with her. (Okay, no. He was entirely serious because bus-lockers and conspiracies and drug cartels were just way too good to pass up on.)

He just hadn't thought that _Beckett_ had taken him seriously.

With everything she'd so eloquently _not said _yesterday at the station and then the call this morning practically inviting his presence (he liked to believe that Beckett was really just being caring when she emphasized for the umpteenth time that if he was _really _busy, he shouldn't come with), Castle was feeling quite the optimist on this wonderful New Year's Eve.

"TSA tore down most of these a few years back, but some terminals still have them," Beckett explained as they neared the rows of grey, beaten lockers. "This happens to be the one closest to Coonan's apartment."

Spotting the locker that sported the same number as the little token attached to the key, Beckett inserted the key and was just about to turn when Castle stopped her.

"Whoa, no no no! Don't do that!"

"What?" Her _t _was sharply aspirated and if he were a more cautious man, Castle would have shut up.

Alas, he was not and would not.

"Once you open it, then we'll know. Could be an alien corpse in there, Ark of the Covenant—"

Beckett rolled her eyes and pulled the locker door open.

"—or Johnny Vong DVDs," finished Castle, frowning at the neat row of DVDs staring back at him from the depths of the locker. "This can't be a coincidence."

"First rule of investigating a homicide, Castle." Beckett pulled out a DVD case and cracked it open to find a packet of unidentified white powder tucked behind the DVD. She held it up for him to see. "There are no coincidences."

…

"I'm sorry, Beckett, but your coolness factor just dropped by like ten points."

The eye-roll was an automated response now. "Whatever shall I do?" Her tone was dry as the Sahara.

"Hey, don't mock. You had that whole _Miami Vice _vibe going so well. Right up until you handed off a sample to do a field test with that kit-thingy—what d'ya call it again?"

"Marquis reagent."

"Yeah, that. So not cool."

Beckett snorted, even as her foot tapped an impatient rhythm against the linoleum floor. "What? Did you expect me to slice the bag open with a pocket knife, stick a finger in and do a taste-test?"

"You know, when you say it like that, it sounds kinda dirty."

Eyes a deadly laser, Beckett shut him up with a single look. "For future reference, Castle. Just about the dumbest thing you can do is to put an unknown substance in your mouth. Never mind the fact that it could be toxic, even if it were just your regular street drugs, cops are sometimes required to undergo random drug testing. The last thing any cop needs is a black mark on his record because they were idiotic enough to taste-test something in the field."

His thick eyebrows pushed together in a disappointed frown. "Oh, I hadn't thought of that." Then he shrugged it off with a lop-sided grin that formed deep dimples in his cheeks and gave him an air of something oscillating between boyish enthusiasm and rakish charm. "Welp, I guess you can have your points back then."

"Whoop dee-doo."

"Detective?" A uniformed officer handed her a thin vial, the powder and the reagent mixed together to give them quick and easy results to test for common drugs.

"Thanks, LT."

Beckett held the vial up to the light, the white powder now a deep, purple-red liquid, sloshing about the glass tube with bold viciousness.

"Oh yeah. It's heroin," she said with a triumphant grin, a feral glint in her eyes. "Looks like good ol' Johnny has some explaining to do."

…

The Box belonged to Beckett.

It had been that way since the very first time she'd stepped into the interrogation room as a detective-in-training with Royce, and the knowledge that this room was her domain had only cemented itself through the years. Young she might be, but no one in the Twelfth would dispute the fact that she was the best in that room—the most intimidating because she acted like she _owned _the place.

And she did. Oh she did.

Castle propped himself up against a corner of the room, but she paid him no heed. She'd allowed him to come in here with her under the condition that he keep his trap shut and let _her_ do all the talking. She was under no illusion that he wouldn't open his big mouth sometime during the questioning, but some part of her _wanted _him to see her like this. To see the beast lurking so close beneath her usual façade. To see that she was dangerous and not to be trifled with.

And okay, maybe she got a crazy thrill out of him seeing her so in her element as well.

It didn't hurt to know that the mere five minutes she'd spent perusing the notes she purposefully splayed in front of her had Johnny Vong so scared, she could see beads of nervous sweat trickling down his neck and diving into the refuge of his collar.

The predator in Beckett purred in delight as she reclined lazily against the uncomfortable chair in a show of ease. Across the table, Vong sat with his shoulders hunched forward, his eyes jumping around the room in rapid fire. His cuffs were going to get a permanent wrinkle in them from how much he'd twisted the cloth about with his gaudy ring-laden fingers, and his foot tapped an erratic rhythm against the tile floor.

She made him nervous.

_Good_. He should be nervous.

Part of the reason she was so good at this was because she knew instinctively how to gain a witness' trust and to draw out a suspect's weakness. A man like Vong was almost fun to interrogate. His weakness was fear, and his type were usually the easiest to intimidate and to shake into saying what she wanted to know.

Almost on cue, Vong broke. "I don't know what you want. I do nothing wrong," he stuttered out, his accent heavy with nerves.

She almost grinned. The initial denial was so…predictable.

She chose to dance around the issue a little, drag out the tension and see what she could wring out of a nervous man.

"Mr. Vong, you run a successful, let's call it 'business venture,' shall we?" She waited for Vong's affirming nod before continuing, "So much so that you've got enough capital to pay for informercials that run through the night. How'd you manage that?"

She gave him an encouraging look and the consummate salesman in Vong couldn't resist the lure to sell his product.

"Ah, Detective. The secret is that it's not about the money. I make dreams come true. I help people to achieve their goals."

"Uh-huh. And if those goals happen to coincide with your making a pretty couple of hundred per deal, then that's just a happy coincidence, isn't it?"

Johnny smiled, lips spreading in an indulgent grin. "Like I said, I give people what they want."

"Like heroin?"

"No, no, no. Drugs are for losers. I'm a businessman."

Oh, Vong was getting confident, wasn't he? She loved it when suspects thought they had the system beat.

Gifting Vong with an absent smile, Beckett fingered the case file as she prepared to deliver her killing blow.

"Here's the deal. Heroin-trafficking? That's good for a ten-year prison bid. That's bad, but that's not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem—" she pulled out the crime scene photo of Coonan's body and slid it in front of Vong "—is the fact that you had Jack Coonan _killed_ to cover up your heroin smuggling operation."

"Wait. You're saying Jack Coonan's dead?" Vong exclaimed, no trace of a foreign accent to be found. He sat up straight, pulling the photo closer to him as he scanned it in disbelief, and in his eyes was a sharp intelligence that he'd masked by playing the smarmy scam artist. So did his true colors come out.

"Whoa, careful there Johnny," Castle said with a little incredulous laugh. He broke the rules by coming over to sit next to her and engaging in the interview, but she let it slide. It's not like she expected him to stay where he was anyway. "Your accent's starting to fade a little."

Vong shot him an annoyed glare. "Look, I didn't come over on a boat, okay? I've never even been to Laos before. I'm from Danville, California."

"And this whole 'Johnny Vong' thing?"

"No one wants to buy a real estate system from a Harvard M.B.A., but show them an idiot with a Rolls Royce, and they'll knock down doors. So I played Johnny Vong. People want all that Horatio Alger crap, so that's what I give 'em."

Castle tilted his head. "Well, that and heroin."

Beckett kept the smile to herself when she saw the irritated and startled look Vong shot Castle. Maybe it was kind of useful having Castle in the interrogation after all. It was keeping Vong off-balance, at the very least.

"How'd you know Jack Coonan?" she asked.

Vong shook his head. "Whatever you think you know, I _promise_ you, I did not kill Coonan. You have to believe me."

"Do I? Nothing about you is real."

"No, I—" Vong cut himself off with a frustrated sigh, one hand scrubbing up and down his face. "I needed the money to take the program national. He needed a way to get the product into the country. It was stupid, but once you make a deal with the devil, you belong to him."

Oh yes. Now they were getting somewhere. She forced herself to tamp down on the adrenaline rush of closing in on her prey, but she still came out too eagerly. "Who do you belong to? Who are you working for?"

"He'll kill me."

"I can protect you."

Vong shook his head, genuine fear widening his eyes and edging him with the beginnings of hysteria. "You can't. Nobody can. You don't know what he's capable of. You don't believe me, ask Jack Coonan."

No, no, no, damn it! She was losing him.

"Mr. Vong—"

"No. I'd rather lose ten years of my life than all of it."

Vong raked his hands through his hair, and Beckett wished she could do the same with her own.

…

"Whoever he's working for scares him a lot more than prison," Beckett said as they settled at her desk after the interrogation.

"Well, we already know that he's just a rung on the ladder. Whoever's on top must be one hell of a terror."

Beckett growled, her eyes darting all over her notes but finding nowhere to land. "Damn it. I know there has to be a connection, but I just can't find it."

Castle's phone chirped and he groaned.

"What?"

"My event planner. I need to go back to the loft for some last-minute preparations," he said, his shoulders scrunching up like a little boy in trouble.

"Then go! And leave me in peace," she said, making shooing motions with her hands. He hesitated, his eyes lingering on the case notes spread out on her desk. "Castle. Out. If there's any new developments, I'll let you know."

"But—"

"Castle."

"Fine." His lips pursed in a childish pout and his arms crossed in front of his chest like a six-year-old might do when trying to give someone the cold shoulder.

She really shouldn't indulge him, she knew, but…

"I'll see you tonight," she said, five words tossed out in casual nonchalance but by the way Castle took in a sharp breath and the sudden vibration of excitement in his body, he understood it for what she meant.

"Until tonight, then."

She didn't need to look to hear the soft smile in his voice. She shivered as the deep tones washed over her and ignited warmth in places she didn't care to think about.

Damn if Castle didn't make her feel like the Grinch with an all-too-quickly growing heart ready to burst out of her chest.

…

Kate was just coming back from a quick coffee break at the shop around the corner from the station (she needed something that wasn't the sludge of the break room's coffee) when she walked into a bullpen that was eerily silent. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she couldn't shake the feeling that everyone was watching her.

That, and Lanie was there. She never came down to the station. Lanie loved to lord it over Kate that all the detectives in the city had to come to the OCME for consultation, not the other way.

Uncurling the scarf from around her neck in a bid to study the situation a little longer, Kate draped the soft cotton on the back of her chair before turning to face the ME and the older gentleman standing next to her. "Lanie, what…are you doing here?"

Lanie turned to face her and the sinking pit in the detective's stomach widened its maw at the bleak expression on her best friend's face.

"It's about the Coonan case." Lanie gestured at the man standing beside her. "This is Dr. Clark Murray. He's a forensic pathologist. I asked him to consult."

Beckett reached out to shake his hand, briefly appeased to know that this was about Coonan, but still confused as to what was going on. "I'm, uh, Detective Kate Beckett."

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Kate indicated for Dr. Murray and Lanie to sit. "So what do you have?"

Lanie handed Dr. Murray a case file and he pulled out a close-up of the wounds on Coonan's torso. "Note the rectangle bruising around the wounds, here, here and here," he began, gesturing at the photo to better visualize his point. "It's caused by the hilt of the knife striking with force enough to compress the skin."

Beckett nodded, following so far. "And as a result, the injuries penetrate deeper than the actual length of the blade."

"He's also honed his blade so fine, it's brittle enough for bits to break when it strikes bone. Which is why slivers of blade were found inside both of his victims. We now know those slivers come from the same murder weapon."

Beckett perked up at that. "Wait, two victims? How many people has he killed?"

Lanie answered that one. "Five—that we know of."

"So we're looking at a serial."

Dr. Murray cocked his head to the side. "Yes and no. We believe we're dealing with a professional, someone with extensive military training."

"A contract killer," Beckett concluded, the beginnings of a thirst for the hunt stirring in her blood. This was huge. Exposing a contract killer and helping to bring him down would almost guarantee her transfer to Homicide.

Nobody else seemed eager to give her more information though, and that should have tipped her off.

Dr. Murray continued his explanation. "I've used tomographic reconstruction of Coonan's wounds to generate a 3-D model of the blade used." He pulled out a clay replica from an evidence bag and handed it to Beckett. "It's a special operations knife, the kind favored by Special Forces in Gulf War I."

This time he pulled out an example of the real thing and placed it on the table. Heart thumping wildly for no reason Beckett could understand, she picked up the knife, noticing too late that her hands were shaking.

What the hell?

"He kills with a single blow, using these other wounds to camouflage the skill with which the initial stroke was delivered. The very same method and the very same weapon that the killer employed…ten years ago."

Dr. Murray's voice hitched just slightest bit, but Kate heard it. She heard it and she knew.

Time slowed, the earth pausing on its axis as the world fell away from her. She heard nothing but white noise roaring in her ears, felt nothing but her heart squeeze, squeeze, _squeezing_ so damn tight that she couldn't breathe.

Kate fingered the notched edge of the blade and revulsion surged through her when she realized what she was holding. It wasn't the exact weapon used, but this was the same type of knife that had killed her mother. Her _mother_. She knew from poring over previous ME reports that her mother had died a violent, painful death, but now…now she could see all too clearly in her mind's eye the keen blade sinking deep into tender flesh and ripping breath from life. Phantom gasps of pain whispered by her ears, the spark of life fading slowly from eyes that once knew joy immeasurable.

Kate turned and saw Lanie watching her with careful eyes like she was Atlas and the world too finally too much for her to bear, crushing her with its gargantuan weight.

"L-Lanie?"

Lanie shook her head, tears welling in those dark eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"Detective Beckett, there is no doubt in my mind that Jack Coonan was killed by the same man who murdered your mother."

The earth groaned beneath her feet as the world churned back into movement, the steady march of time tick-tocking away even as it left Kate behind to drown, fingernails scrabbling at slippery walls as she slid down down down.

* * *

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_A/N: I couldn't resist poking fun at the heroin-tasting because, really Beckett, as sexy and fun as it was on the show, that was a really, really dumb thing to do._


	23. Chapter 23

_A/N: Thanks for all your reviews! I'm terrible at responding individually, but trust me when I say that each and every one makes me grin like a maniac. (I was also greatly amused to see so many people agree with the stupidity of taste-testing unknown substances in the field.) That's all. Just wanted to say thanks. :D_

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Three

* * *

Castle's eyes flicked to the door for the hundredth time that hour. Paula was not amused.

Hair scraped back into a no-nonsense, high ponytail and body encased in her tight-fitting designer dress and her mouth a-smacking on her Nicotine replacement gum, Paula approached him with her regular irreverence. "Lookin' for someone, Ricky?"

Eyes wide in startlement, Castle reacted a second too late to be convincing. "What? No. Why?"

"Then stop lookin' at that damn door every two seconds. You're gonna give me a freakin' aneurism. What's got you wound up so tight anyway?"

"None of your business, Paula."

"It _is _my business when you're bothered enough that you're not making good with your guests. Sales, Ricky. It's all about promoting sales."

"This isn't a book launch. It's my New Year's Eve party. I'm not working tonight."

"Uh-huh."

Paula's shrewd eyes picked him apart with frightening ease. He looked damn good tonight (hell, he looked damn good most all the time), what with that deep maroon button-up draped like silk over his decadent body and his five o'clock shadow giving him the rakish charm that did wonders for his book sales (and her paycheck). Even still, something had been off about him all night. Oh, he'd always been good with crowds, knowing exactly how to draw people in with a story or a joke, and tonight was no different. Even a Richard Castle on an off day possessed a charismatic magnetism that reeled people in and had them snacking out of the palm of his talented hands.

But Paula had been his book agent long enough to recognize his tells, and she didn't miss the way his eyes lit up whenever the door opened only for his lips to pull down in a frown when he saw that whomever he was expecting wasn't the next to cross the threshold.

After a long moment's study, she brought a finely manicured hand up to cradle her temple, her bracelets jangling with the movement. "Ah, damn it, Ricky. Whoever she is, get her out of your system, then move on, will ya? This mooning about isn't like you."

Castle forced down on the alarmingly strong desire to bite off Paula's head for even suggesting such a thing. Kate Beckett wasn't someone to just _get out of his system_.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Deny it all you want, Ricky, but I recognize that look in your eyes. Just remember that we're all still dealing with the fallout of the last woman you had the poor sense to fall in love with."

He didn't bother to respond. What he had with Meredith had hadn't been love. It had been affection and a more than healthy dose of lust, and in a way, he did love her. But there hadn't been any understanding between them, no melding of minds. Outside of the bedroom and a mutual, youthful love for recklessness and dangerous fun, they hadn't shared much at all.

And when fate had blessed them with a little girl to love and cherish, Meredith hadn't wanted that responsibility either. He'll forever be thankful that Meredith never once considered getting rid of their baby before Alexis had ever had a chance to live, but Meredith's concept of motherhood extended only so far as her own convenience. When it became apparent that caring for a baby involved more than buying pretty clothes and a cuddle session when it fit her own schedule, Meredith lost interest. Much like how she lost interest in anything outside of herself, including Rick.

Despite her utter lack of regard for their marriage vows and her absentee motherhood, Rick didn't consider Meredith a bad person, per se. Just a self-centered one.

But he did learn enough to know that he didn't want anything to do with that brand of "love."

When it became apparent that Castle wasn't going to budge on divulging the secrets of his mystery woman, Paula made a scoffing noise of disgust and left him to his own devices. That goddamn bar better be well-stacked.

Castle glanced again at the digital clock on his microwave. Esposito and Ryan had shown up about half an hour ago, but neither of them had any idea where or when or _if_ Beckett was coming. Perhaps even more foreboding was the fact that Captain Montgomery had yet to make an appearance as well.

His phone buzzed, and a choir of angels sang hallelujahs in his head when he saw the caller ID.

_Finally._

"I hope you're calling to tell me that you're on your way, Detective," Castle said in lieu of a normal greeting, relief and renewed enthusiasm painting a silly grin on his face.

Nothing but harsh breathing met his ear and the tiniest of whimpers filtered through his speakers. Alarm rose up, a suffocating weight on his chest.

"Beckett, are you there? What's wrong?"

"He took me off the case, Castle," he heard her gasp between breathless sobs. "He took me off my mother's case."

…

Seven years ago, the course of Kate Beckett's life changed irrevocably.

It was supposed to be just another family dinner, the last one of the holidays before she headed back to Stanford for the second semester of her sophomore year. There was nothing special about that night, nothing that would foreshadow the tragedy to come. No trumpets blaring, no alarms ringing. No niggles of unease prickling the back of her neck. No suggestion that she should have cherished that last morning with her mom before Johanna headed to work.

Everything was normal.

…Until it wasn't.

That night marked the death of more than a mother and a wife. It was the death of young Katie Beckett with stars in her eyes and an idealistic romanticism not yet stamped out by the harsh realities of life.

In the seven years since, Kate had swung from extreme to extreme in a bid to rid herself of the gaping void in her soul, but to no avail. Burying herself in academics brought her nothing but empty success and a lingering ache in her chest. The wild life held no appeal as she found herself waking morning after morning with a pounding headache and the sick knowledge that none of the bad choices she'd made the night before could give her more than a brief moment's peace. She even tried taking herself halfway across the world, but not even the novelties that Kiev offered could take her mind away from a darkened alley, precious blood spilled to mingle with week-old trash.

When she'd graduated and come home from California, she realized that escapism takes many forms. Hers had been distraction. Her father's had been the bottle. So wrapped up was she in her own grief and finding ways to outrun the pervasive ache in her soul that she hadn't noticed that her father had lost himself in an alcoholic haze.

It had taken five years of arguments and tears and broken promises before Jim Beckett rejoined the living. He was coming up on two years of sobriety now, but every morning Kate still woke up terrified that she'll find her father choking in his own vomit.

Running hadn't helped. Distractions were simply that and gave her no true reprieve. What else could she do?

The epiphany came to her as she curled up in bed with a Richard Castle book in hand and abandoned herself to the world of fiction. Mystery novels had become her salvation. In them, she found that good prevailed, evil vanquished, and truth—truth always triumphed.

Through them, she'd found direction.

Because if no one was going to find the truth for her, then what recourse did she have but to seek the truth on her own?

She applied for the Police Academy on the very next day.

In the four years since, everything she'd done, every move she'd made, had been to bring her one step closer to reopening her mother's case.

Get into Homicide; solve her mother's case.

But now that she was finally so close to her endgame, it was all going to be for naught.

She stood on the corner of Broome and Crosby, staring up at the elegant façade to Castle's building and wondered what she was doing here. She shouldn't be here. She was terrible for him, and the fact that she couldn't remember making the journey here from the station should have been proof enough that she shouldn't be here.

She should go home and drown in her grief on her own.

But her hands acted of their own accord, and when she heard his voice filtering through the speakers of her phone, joyful and excited and teasing, she closed her eyes and broke on a sob.

"He took me off the case, Castle. He took me off my mother's case."

She couldn't stop the words, couldn't stop the way her chest ached and her breathing hitched, her elbows pressing tight into her body as she almost doubled over in an instinctive move to protect herself.

It hurt so much.

Castle was saying something on the other line, urgency and fear pouring through his words, but it was hard to hear anything past the roar of failure so loud in her ears. She'd let her mother down.

"Kate! Kate! Come on, answer me. Where are you? Damn it, Paula, not now!" There was rustling on the other end, and then the distinct sound of a door slamming. "Where, Kate?"

"Your building."

"What?"

"Outside your building."

"Okay. Okay, I'm coming down right now. Stay where you are, you got that?"

She nodded, forgetting that he couldn't see her through the phone.

"Kate, you hear me?"

"Yes." She pushed the single word through a rusted windpipe, and she wasn't sure whether Castle actually heard her because the line went dead. She stared at it for a long time, not really understanding what that meant. Hell, nothing made sense right now.

Nothing at all.

God, her _mother's case. _

How could Montgomery do this to her? _How_?

Overhead the sky burst apart in a luminance of neon colors, the cheerful magentas and bright cobalts and sunshine yellows a mockery of her emotions.

Another year, another celebration, another reminder of her abject failures.

…

Castle's heart thundered in his chest as he watched the elevator lights count down with all the lethargy of a two-toed sloth. He forced himself to not pace the cramped elevator, but he couldn't seem to stop his hands from opening and closing in a nervous fit.

Beckett was not okay. Not at all, and that terrified him.

It should probably scare him even more to realize that the mere thought of Beckett in distress would set him off like this, but at this moment, he didn't care. All he knew were the sobbing gasps that still rang in his ears when he'd spoken with her on the phone.

Beckett had always projected this image as an indomitable force who could face down anything by sheer willpower. To know that she was as human as everyone else, to know that she could be brought down to her knees... The knowledge almost hurt.

The doors had barely slid open when Castle slipped through the slim gap and rushed into the lobby in a fluster. Eduardo, his doorman, greeted him with a wave and a "Good evening, Mr. Castle" but he didn't take notice. All he could see was the slender frame clutching herself as if in pain just outside the glass double-doors into his lobby.

Outside, a series of deafening booms rang out as the world celebrated the New Year all around them. But in his eyes, there was only this woman, so strong and yet so broken.

He pushed through the doors and his first instinct was to pull her into his arms and never let go, but he stopped himself just as he started reaching out.

Beckett seemed to be in shock and he didn't want to alarm her with sudden movements.

"Beckett?"

He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder and when she still didn't acknowledge him, Castle slid both hands down her arms and cupped her elbows. He pulled her into the shelter of his body, and he didn't know whether he should be thankful that she leaned into him so trustingly or afraid that she came without a struggle.

"Kate?" Her name was a murmur against the tangled nest of her hair.

"How could he do this to me, Castle? How?"

His heart broke anew at the despair in her voice. Small and broken, he didn't need to know exactly what happened to know that she'd been dealt a blow almost too much to bear.

He hoped it wasn't too much to bear. He hoped it wasn't too much at all.

She hiccuped as a fresh stream of tears bubbled from her unbidden and she turned her face further into the solid burrow of his chest.

"My mother, Castle. I let her down. And it's been seven years, and I miss her. I miss her so much, and everything is gone. Everything is done."

"No, no it's not. You didn't let her down."

But she heard nothing and continued to whisper a stream of words that broke his heart as much as it made him want to wrap her up in cotton and never let her face the horrors of the world alone.

...

They sat together at a little coffee shop just down the street from Castle's loft. They were seated at a cozy booth in the back corner, a steaming mug of hot chocolate in front of each of them. They were the only ones there and the bored barrista had eyed them strangely when Castle ordered their drinks. What kind of people went to sit in a coffee shop when most everyone else was ringing in the new year with drunken revelry?

Instead, there they were, facing each other wordlessly as they both tried to figure out how to approach her emotional breakdown.

Castle didn't even bother hiding the fact that he was watching her with unblinking eyes. She was just such a study of complexity. Not ten minutes ago, she'd been sobbing her heart out against him, but now, only the reddened rims around her eyes could have hinted at the tears she'd cried. She stirred the hot chocolate with a wooden stick and watched the foam form ripples in the dark liquid with an absent expression that was more thoughtful than miserable. It was incredible (and a little frightening) how she managed to compose herself so thoroughly in so short a time.

Beckett broke first. "Aren't you gonna ask?"

She kept rolling and unrolling one corner of the brown napkin in front of her, her eyes darting from her mug to the window to the island counter and back to her hot chocolate.

"I figured... when you're ready, you'll tell me."

That made her eyes stop their wearying forays around the room and focus on him. "You're different."

"What?"

She shook her head. "I don't even know where to start."

About her mother's case or about him?

Castle cleared his throat lightly. "The beginning usually works pretty well. Although a judicious use of _in media res_ could be pretty effective too."

Beckett let out a short laugh, shaking her head at him, but the heavy weight on his chest lightened for the first time since he got her call tonight. She said it herself. He makes her laugh. He liked that he could make her laugh.

"And the writer strikes again."

"_Best-selling_ author, need I remind you?"

"Oh, I'm very aware, Castle." She rolled her eyes at him, but he thought it might be playful. Then she let out a long breath of air, her cheeks puffing out as if she needed to physically gird herself before she spoke.

He wanted to tell her that she didn't have to tell him (she didn't), but he thought that maybe, _she_ needed to. It had to be healthier if she'd be willing to tell someone, right?

That she'd decided to trust that he could be that somebody... He didn't need her to spell it out to know that it was a Pretty Big Deal.

"Remember how I told you my mother had been murdered?"

Castle nodded. As if he could forget.

"She'd been stabbed. Multiple times. The M.E. at the time... well, he apparently wasn't very thorough."

"Random gang violence," Castle recalled.

Her laugh this time was etched in bitterness. "Apparently _not_ so random."

"What do you mean?"

"Lanie... Lanie has seen my mother's autopsy reports. When I first became a detective and got access to archives, I'd asked her to help me see if she could find anything the original M.E. missed. At the time, she was still doing her residency, but she was good. Is good. And I thought, if anyone could find anything, she would. But she didn't. Not at the time anyway. But she must have remembered the details and the notes from the report because she recently recognized the pattern of injury on the body of another victim."

Castle sucked in a harsh breath as the pieces came tumbling together. "Coonan."

Beckett nodded as she repeated with a hollow voice. "Jack Coonan. She saw the similarities and called in another forensic pathologist to consult, and he confirmed it. Jack Coonan's killer is the same person who murdered my mother."

"Kate..."

"I was so happy, Castle. I mean I was devastated because this is my mother, but I was so hopeful because finally, _finally_ there's a break in her case."

"And then Montgomery took you off the case."

"You know, the thing is that I can't even be mad at him. If I were in his position, I'd've done the exact damn thing. It's just…what am I supposed to do now? My whole life was for this. _Now_ who am I?"

Castle hesitated for a brief moment, then reached out to cover her hand with his own. He curled his fingers around her slender digits, such fragile entities yet filled with so much tensile strength. She didn't pull back as he'd expected her to. Instead, her dark eyes followed his careful movements with the wariness of a wounded doe.

"I study people for a living. Well, okay no, I'm a writer obviously, but all that really means is that I put the stories I observe onto paper. And you, Kate Beckett, so much of you is a conundrum. Even when I first met you, I thought, you're a mystery I'm never gonna solve. You are... beauty and passion and fierce intellect. You're also crazy stubborn and constantly threatening me with physical injury," he added with a wry chuckle and he was glad to see her lips twitch in amusement. "But uh, you know what draws me in the most about you?"

"What?" she asked softly, a tinge of red coloring her cheeks but her eyes bright with something he didn't dare name.

"Your heart. Your compassion. You care. About a little girl lost in the middle of a mall. About a teenage boy who died too young. A young wife whose only fault was marrying a man who loved his family so much, he risked everything to give them a better life. You're so much more than your mother's case, Kate. I wish you could see what I see."

She dropped her eyes to the tabletop, her hair a curtain veiling her face. Her silence was nerve-wracking as Castle suddenly wondered whether he'd said too much. But then she lifted her gaze to his and on her lips was the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen.

"Thank you, Castle. That's the sweetest thing anybody has ever said to me."

His answering grin grew quickly, and he responded the only way he could.

"Always."


End file.
